


The Secret in the Heart of the Forest

by myrskytuuli



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Black Family Drama, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family Secrets, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Good Slytherins, Hurt/Comfort, James is a fuckboy but learns to be better, Lily has a personality, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), The faerie queen - Freeform, cuddling for emotions, cuddling for warmth, ensemble of morally dubious fairies, every family has scandalous secrets, lots of walking in the woods, mommy issues especially, more tags to add when I think of them, mostly brought to you by the Black family being like that, my little marauders: Friendship is magic, no pairings but friendships that have potential to become more, no really this fic is all about the kids learning the power of friendship, purebloods are canonically incestious, some pretty fucked up shit is touched upon, this fic is just a bunch of literary references in a trench coat, threath of starvation bringing people together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2019-12-26 08:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18279947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrskytuuli/pseuds/myrskytuuli
Summary: "Well. This is either going to end in homicide or in a group hug."One didn't need to be a legilimens to know that absolutely no one was putting their money on the group hug situation.Or, the marauders, Lily, Severus, Regulus and Narcissa are having the worst night ever. Wannabe death-eaters, one botched human sacrifice, and an ancient stone circle later they are stuck in a faerie otherworld, without magic, without supplies and without a plan. They have no choice but to work together to survive, which already is putting their changes of making it back home decidedly lower.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each goodly thing is hardest to begin  
> -Spenser, Faerie Queene

Lily Evans was unhappy.

Currently she was sitting in the library with charms textbooks laid all around her. Opened books were lounging carelessly around the table, closed books were sitting on chairs around her, waiting for their turn to invade the tabletop. Books were piled on top of each other, opened hazardously, and scattered around. It was complete book anarchy.

Sitting amongst this literary chaos, Lily was notably alone. Her loneliness was pointed, charged, and felt slightly threatening to those walking past her table.

This was not the calm loneliness of a midnight walk nor the desperate loneliness of being shunned. This was weaponised angry loneliness, made clear by the books that had been placed over the table in a way that would make it impossible for anyone to join her, or even worse, try to strike up a conversation.

It was September, so it was unusual to see student so engrossed in books. Usually the study marathons started approximately two weeks before the end of the year exams, when the library was taken over by students frantically trying to stay awake with the power of pure will and shady potions.

But Lily Evans was not really studying, as much as she was making a point. This was _their_ table. _Hers and his_. And by sitting on it at Friday afternoon, she was making a point that it wasn't _her_ that had given up _their_ table.

From year one, Lily and Severus had spent their Friday afternoons together. Completing their weekly homework, gossiping, playing games, talking, imagining, and generally being friends. This was Their Table in the Corner.

But Severus was not here now, as he had not been any Friday since the star of this year. Their fifth year in Hogwarts, and apparently the year when Severus no longer wanted to have Friday Afternoons.

Lily pointedly was at their table, no matter what Mary or Marlene any of the other Gryffindor girls said. Every Friday she hoped that Severus would see her at their table and feel guilty. He would have deserved it. Sometimes Lily even hoped that he would come over, apologetic and sorry, and that she could leave the table in a huff and see Severus squirm.

That hadn't yet happened. Lily had seen Severus once or twice, always accompanied by his new Slytherin friends. They had their own table, where they had their own study group every Friday afternoon. The most threatening study group you would ever see in your life. They sat there, at the table nearest to the forbidden section, with their expensive robes and sharp smiles, doing homework.

At least they said that they were doing homework, Lily wouldn't have been surprised if they actually studied dark arts.

Lily had spied them from between the shelves, feeling like a creep, and hoped that she would have had the courage to walk up to them, and say something witty and cutting. It had been weeks and she still hadn’t came up with anything witty nor cutting to say.

She couldn't think of anything that wouldn't have made her sound like a jealous five-year-old, so she always glided silently back to her (their) table and continued with her “project”. (Her project was very complex as even she didn’t know exactly what it was aside from seething at Severus).

It was fine. She was having fun. She didn't even miss him. Her study project was much more interesting.

 

Yes, she was having as fun as she had had the whole summer.

Petunia had been nasty to Lily ever since she went to Hogwarts, (to be honest sometimes even before that), so that wasn’t what had made this summer any worse than all the others. It had started gradually, Petunia’s escalating hate. The first summer holiday had been almost like all the others before Hogwarts, but then it had started to get worse. Petunia undermining Lily bit by bit, downplaying her experiences and making ‘jokes’ that she could always explain away as innocent enough, playful enough that she could explain them away as sisterly banter. However, from holiday to holiday she had turned worse and worse till Lily no more wished to spend time with her own sister. She felt vaguely guilty about this.

If her parents noticed the growing tension between their children, they had decided to ignore it. Anyone would say that Lily’s parents adored her, and anyone saying that would be right. They did. That didn’t change the fact that Lily had always been the odd one out in their family. Her parents did not act natural around her in the same way that they did with Petunia. Their love towards Lily was underlined and pointed, like they had to put extra effort into showing how much they loved Lily. Like they were always in danger of getting an inspection from the bureau of Loving Your Youngest Daughter. Getting her Hogwarts letter had only made things worse, as the odd one out had turned into the witch one out.

sometimes Lily felt like that after Hogwarts, her parents had started to adore ‘their witch’ more than their daughter, relieved that there was a good excuse to treat her different from Petunia. Like she was an exotic guest staying at their house, instead of a daughter.

When Lily came home, her parents wanted to hear everything she had learned, all the magical hijinks that had happened to her. All the new things she had discovered in the magical world. Every June she had to give an introduction like she was a foreign exchange student introducing her culture to the excited host family.

Never did they ask about her friends, whether she had any friends, whether she was interested in any boys at the school, if she was being bullied, how she felt being so far away from home all the time. She had turned from a daughter into a curiosity.

And then there had of course been the night her life had shattered. The trip to see grandmother in Cornwall.

(The hot summer air in Grandmother’s living room. The cold glass of lemonade in her hand. Mother drinking her third glass of gin. Father pacing the room, showcasing more emotions than Lily could ever remember. Petunia’s smug look as she had turned to look at Lily whose life had been yanked away from her, with father’s angry accusation.)

(The numbness that hadn’t even allowed her to cry.)

“This is all your fault”, Petunia had whispered that night, passing her on the hallway, in her nightgown.

After that, she had started to tick of days from her calendar till she could return to Hogwarts.

 

Even spending time with Severus wasn't as it had once been. While as children they had been inseparable, now even Severus was distancing himself from Lily. After returning from Cornwall, Lily, distraught and confused, had first sought out Severus, only to find a pale and hostile boy who turned her away from his door and was snappish and irritable at the best of times. The words that she had came to confide to him had died on her tongue, lodging in and leaving an unpleasant lump. Severus hadn’t noticed, or even worse, hadn’t cared.

For the rest of the summer, they couldn’t seem to find anything to talk about that wouldn’t anger the other. When you censored their friends at Gryffindor/Slytherin, their families, the dark arts, and the case against dark arts, there was not much left. Their silences were no longer comfortable.

Somewhere along the way, Lily’s summer had turned into long stretch of avoiding people she used to love and feeling like she was nothing more than an unwanted burden in everyone’s lives.

Now that she was at Hogwarts, she was as lonely as she had been the whole summer. She had never managed to make close friends amongst the other Gryffindors, who liked her well enough, but did not showcase this liking by actively spending time with her. In the beginning she hadn’t felt the need for other friends, because she had had Severus, and later the cliques had already been formed and Lily had been left out.

Her loneliness might have been her own fault, or it might have been because she was surrounded by treacherous and self-centred pricks, but she was not going to show how much it bothered her to anyone. That would have been pathetic. Instead she was leaning hard on her mother’s old adage: if you ignore a problem long and hard enough, it will eventually cease to exist.

Speaking of problems that did not seem to cease to exist, a shadow fell over her. As she looked up, her day went from bad to worse. James Potter was leaning on her table, smirking.

* * *

 

Severus Snape was anxious.

On the one hand, he had secured a place in the Slytherin créme de la créme study group. On the other hand, he wasn’t spending time with Lily.

He reasoned his sacrifice of Lily-time by remembering that his summer had been textbook definition of horrific and if he didn’t do something his schooldays might follow the pattern. The marauders were not getting any kinder and his housemates were not getting any more tolerant. If he wanted to survive, he had to start making connections. The summer had killed many things, including most of the tenderness from his heart.

Father had been worse than ever this summer. He had been recently unemployed and as a consequence had now even more time to get drunk. While Severus had gotten accustomed to his father as a spectral figure in his life, who left at the break of dawn and came back at sundown smelling of alcohol and falling unconscious at the sofa, now he was a constant, unpleasant presence.

He and mother fought more and more, the distance between them previously keeping the peace no longer there. The fragile truce of their marriage had now cracked. (cracked like-Merlin no he could not think of it, not again.)

He had been angry at mother for taking all of those insults and threats without answering with her own. She was a witch, she didn’t need to take this.

(And why, why hadn’t she done anything that solstice night)

 

After the summer solstice, after mother had walked away, (expect-)

After she had walked away, it had been Severus alone with his father and it had terrified him. Father hadn’t hurt him, not really, aside from smacking him around a little and calling him names, but that wasn’t anything new to him. But still, he had been more afraid than he had ever been before, the terrible possibilities of his father’s rage without mother there to protect him clouding his mind as he tip-toed around the house.

When Lily had showed up at Spinner’s end, back from her family-holiday, he had turned her away, unable to deal with her. From then on, trying to spend time with Lily had turned more and more awkward each day.

When one censored one’s Slytherin housemates, dark arts, and one’s hatred for Lily’s Gryffindor housemates, there was not much of a conversation left. He couldn’t get the words concerning the terrible night of the solstice from his mouth and he couldn’t admit to the fear he felt deep in his bones. Not to Lily, who was made of sunshine and flowers and pretty things.

So instead of forcing his presence on Lily, he had spent almost all of his summer holed up in his room, creating curses on the edges of his notebooks, each nastier than the other.

Sectumsempra was his newest baby, and his pride and joy. Unlike Leviocorpus, which had been stolen from him the first day of this school year, sectumsempra he had kept all to himself. And he would keep it that way. He might not have anything else to be proud of, but he did have that curse.

Leviocorpus had taught him his lesson to not to try and boast about curse-making skills in the slytherin common room, lest his spells be spread around the school immediately, eventually looping back to be used against him. Sectumsempra was just for him and he would learn to use it silently, and it would keep him safe.

But the curse would not be the only thing keeping him safe this year, if he succeeded in his mission. Said mission was currently gathered around the round library table near the restricted section, with their expensive quills and calculating smiles. The Black sisters, Bellatrix and Narcissa, seventh and sixth years respectfully, sat next to each other looking beautifully bored. Severus had thought that spending all these years with Lily would have made sure that he wasn’t uncomfortable around girls, but these two aristocratic pure-bloods were like from another planet when compared to Lily. They were intimidating, but in a glamorous way. 

As a complete opposite to the girls were Avery and Mulciber, two muscles with mouths attached to them, who only got passable essays done if Severus was holding their hands through the entire process. Mulciber was slightly redeemed by his face, which could have been lifted from a Greek statue, and curls of blond hair that almost begged someone to card their fingers through them. Avery had broad shoulders and nothing else, which ensured that Severus ended up spending more time pressed next to Mulciber, proof-reading his essays, than with Avery. This meant that Mulciber was currently getting slightly higher marks than Avery. It didn’t however matter much, as both of them had enormous piles of money under their name, and both treated school as a bit of a hobby to indulge in before starting their lives as heirs to old and noble houses.

Then there was Regulus Black, a boy year younger than Severus and the only one in the group who Severus might tentatively call a friend. Or maybe not a friend but an ally. Someone who did not openly despise him. It was as close to a friend that Severus was capable of making, besides Lily.

These people sitting with him at this table were all children with money and influence in high places and if Severus wanted to survive in this world, he needed their approval. From an early childhood Severus had been a survivor and survivor he had decided to continue to be. He would suffer Avery’s hatefulness, and Mulciber’s general stupidity, and the Black sisters’ patronizing dismissals, and Regulus’ casual racism, if it meant that he would be able to secure himself a future that was even slightly better than his reality right now.

Did he regret that he had to give up his Friday afternoons with Lily? Yes, but he also understood that surviving was at best unpleasant business and that he had no choice. Lily would hardly miss him anyway. she was probably happier with her Gryffindor friends.

* * *

 

James Potter was restless.

He had had a pleasant summer as always, filled with sleeping in, lots of desserts, and naps in the warm sunlight of the garden. Aside from the casual bouts of boredom, it had once again been a perfect summer.

His school year had started with the same mischievous note as always. The joy of getting away from his parents, re-uniting with his mates, and setting off a dung-bomb in a train compartment full of slytherins.

Still, there was an undercurrent of anxiety in everything he did. James had known that they lived in dangerous and tumultuous times, with the war picking up speed around them, but somehow when he had been younger it hadn’t ever crossed his mind how dully unpleasant it would be to live through a time where a war was picking up speed. Stories had lied to him, failed to mention the agonisingly slow march of time, and the mundanity of the little announcements of deaths in the newspapers. There weren’t heroics being done by courageous aurors, and the enemy refused to be a visible and easily recognised threat that you could point out on the streets. Instead they insisted on hiding behind the visor of everyday people.

When James had been eleven, and there had been whispers of a war in the horizon, he had hoped that the war would still be going on when he would graduate Hogwarts, so that he too could catch some death eaters, become famous, and bring honour to the Potter name. These days his opinion was starting to tentatively change.

There was something about this summer and James’ trust in stories. His mother’s soothing voice came to mind, as did the image of her kneeling in front of the fireplace.

But at least at home the war stayed on the pages of the newspaper, and you could choose not to read. In Hogwarts it was different.   

Just this morning, someone had painted the words “blood purity” into the second-floor corridor wall, next to the charms classroom. There wasn’t anything to be done, expect for Filch to scrub the words out. It was a little evil that managed to bring down everyone’s mood for the rest of the day, for which no one would get punished.  

The world seemed to be full of little evils that made your days slightly more unpleasant. Evils that you couldn’t fight against; and James didn’t handle well situations that he couldn’t solve by fighting against them.

The helplessness was starting to eat away at James, making him even more eager to prank the slytherins in ways that started to slide further and further away from what his parents would approve as harmless fun.

But what else was he supposed to do? It was clear that no justice would be given to the slimy snakes from the authorities, so he had to take justice in his own hands. He was practically doing what heroes in all of those stories did, right? His best friend was suffering in his own home, Remus had to live in fear because of his condition, and Evans had looked miserable since the start of the term. They deserved justice and James was here to deliver.

(And mother would at least approve of that. Of delivering justice? Because mother said that he was a hero, and especially good-hearted boy, and would grow up to do great things. she wouldn’t lie to him? She wouldn’t. The thing by the fire-place had been a misunderstanding-)

James found his much-needed distraction in a form of a familiar red mop of hair hunching over a table in the corner of the library. It must have been destiny that had brought him to return his transfiguration book today, at this exact time.

“Hi Lily!”

Lily looked up at him like he had personally spat on her breakfast juice. James would never do that; if he slipped something into someone’s drink the results would be hilarious not crude.

She returned back to her book like if she ignored James hard enough, he would disappear. But James was not going to give up that easily. They were conveniently alone and Snivellus was nowhere in sight.

“How was your summer?”

Lily lifted her head up again and the corners of her mouth went down. “Fine.”

“Really? Because you have been looking pretty down this whole month- “

“I said it was fine. It’s just your ugly mug that is bringing me down.”

“Oi! I have it in good knowledge that this is one of the most handsome faces in- “

“Go away.”

“What-?”

“Go away. I don’t want to play your games today Potter.”

“I’m not playing any game- “

“Whatever.”

James felt his own mouth slip into a frown. Lily had hidden herself behind her book again. She was usually witty and easily riled up. Her angry blush was an attractive one, and James missed it. Evans had been a complete wet blanket this whole September and no matter how much James had prodded and provoked, she had not risen up to the challenge.

“So did you finally ditch snivellus like a sane person?”

Nothing.

“You know what would cheer you up, going on a date with me. Next Hogsmeade trip, what do you say?”

“Are you fucking with me?”

“C’mon. You, me, butterbeers, having fun.”

“You set my notebook on fire just yesterday.”

“What?! it was ugly! And you spend too much time studying. And I wanted you to talk to me. I wouldn’t have to set your notebooks on fire if you paid attention to me.” James ruffled his hair and smiled his patented Charming Smile.

“That notebook was a gift from Severus.”

“Well no wonder it was so ugly! No need to thank me, I’ll happily burn all the “gifts” he’s forced on you. I’ll buy you a new one. A good looking one, with golden trim. Not cheap and terrible like that one was.”

She did not blush attractively, nor start a tirade against James, which James could tune out while looking at her pretty face. Instead something just shuttered behind her eyes, making the green in them a bit duller.

James frowned again. She looked hurt. That had not been James’ intention.

“Look I’m sorry all right! It was just a dumb notebook, I’ll buy you a new one. Exactly the same as that one was. I won’t burn any of your stuff again if you go out with me.”

Nothing. Her face slipped back behind the book.

“What do you want me to do Evans!?”

Still nothing.

James was just about to say something clever and charming, that would wake her from her hibernation, when a scream tore through the otherwise silent library.

* * *

 

Sirius Black was angry.

Sirius had been angry for a long time now. Sometimes Sirius wondered if he had been born angry, if his first cry had never truly ended. There must have been a time when he had been happy in Grimmauld place, but for the life of him he could not remember such time.

The parcel in his hands was heavy, heavier than its physical weight. Heavy with dreams burned to grey ashes.

Clutching the package against his chest, Sirius rushed towards the library. Remus and Peter followed by his heels, but Sirius could not make sense of what they were saying. He was sure that they were saying something sensible, so he did not mind missing it.

Against the image of Hogwarts’ comforting stone walls Sirius could see another dream-like image of faded red wallpaper with its twisting vine motifs surrounding him, pushing closer and closer.

There is no red room at Hogwarts, he kept thinking to himself. There is no red room.

“Sirius, _where_ are we going”?! Remus sounded faraway, even if he was only few feet behind him.

Regulus. It was Regulus. Sirius thought with anger and betrayal burning in his gut. He told _mother_!

Regulus is at the library, he is there cuddling with the other hopeful death-eaters, Sirius continued his line of thought and headed towards the library. His footsteps were now half running, Remus having to stride faster and Peter having to half-run to keep up.

That traitorous slimy snake! How could he!?

(But of course he could. How many times had he stood there, watching as the door slammed on shut on screaming Sirius.)

When Sirius entered the library, he had only one target in mind. Usually a target would mean a target for a prank, but this time his plan was much more straightforward. He needed to find his dear little brother and air some dirty matters.

This morning Sirius had noticed the small story tucked into the corner of the Daily prophet, entirely by accident. The column was so short, and the picture accompanying it so small, that it was impossible to notice the story by anything but accident. A muggle corner-store burned down by magical means. It wasn’t particularly interesting and even the writer of the story had sounded bored by it. 

Sirius had recognised the place and gone cold.

(Mr. Abidi pressing notes on his hands, realising that Sirius hadn’t counted them, that Sirius didn’t know how to count them, and then teaching him. Never treating Sirius like he was stupid for not knowing. The ever-present sharp smell of cleanliness, the electric lights that _hummed_ , so different from the magical candles of home, the crinkling plastic wrappers. All so alien, so wicked, so _cool_.)

For once in his life he had had something for himself. A way out. A hope that he could step out of Grimmauld place and never step back in. A real tangible feeling of muggle money in his hands, and a possibility to get something for himself that didn’t come with strings attached.

(A gentle hand on his shoulder, promising not to call the cops, and that there were places he knew for kids who needed to lay low. Sirius didn’t know what the muggle had been offering exactly, but it had made him feel something embarrassing.)

It could have been an accident, but he had known that it hadn’t been. It would have been too much of a coincidence.

The package that had arrived from his mother via owl during lunch had confirmed everything Sirius had suspected.

Tears had been threatening to burn through his eyelids as he had stared at mess spilling from the opened package.

Sirius had swallowed the tears and buried them under boiling anger that needed to be unleashed to someone who deserved it.

* * *

Remus Lupin was worried.

Sirius wasn’t listening to him, hadn’t really been listening to anyone the whole day. He had been irritable, snappish and hex-happy. He had made a Hufflepuff first year cry and then gotten angry at Remus for pointing out that this wasn’t what the marauders did.

Apparently, this was what the marauders did these days.

James had shrugged the whole thing off, saying that the Hufflepuff had just overreacted. Peter had been in agreement that she would see how funny the whole thing had been once she calmed down.  

Remus had said nothing after that. He was becoming a champion of saying nothing.

He told himself that he was just overreacting too. That they were his friends and this anxiety gnawing deep in his bones was an insult to the generous friendship they had offered to him.

(They knew that he was a werewolf. What if they would grow tired of him, of his anxiety and complaining and the way he was always there to ruin their fun and how they always had to go the extra mile because of his condition and and and- what if one day they would decide that they didn’t want to be his friends anymore and told everyone that he was a werewolf and he was kicked out of the school and the ministry would take him and they would degree that he had been such a bad friend that there was nothing else but the silver axe-)

The marauders were the best thing to ever happen to Remus, he was not going to be the one to ruin them. Things would get better, everyone was just going through bad time at the moment, with the war looming in the horizon and the atmosphere darkening even in Hogwarts.

One would think that after the summer holidays everyone would be relaxed and ready to face the school-year, but this summer had seemed to do nothing but wound everyone tighter. Remus could feel the simmering tension even in the Gryffindor common room. Evans haunting the place like a ghost of an angry, clenched fist. James talking about how they all _needed to do something_ until everyone grew annoyed and started to give him poisonous looks that James himself seemed to be oblivious to, and Sirius… well Sirius was worrying Remus.

Sirius had an explosion locked behind his beautiful dark eyes, and the shudder that went through Remus every time he looked into them was no longer a pleasant tingle of excitement.

The marauders were drifting apart, and Remus was terrified of it. It seemed such a cruel irony that they had finally all became animagi only to be ripped apart by the rising tensions in the school.

Or maybe they would just drop Remus out. Sirius, James and Peter still seemed to be happy with each other.

Maybe next September Remus would walk this same hallway and watch as his only friends laughed and had fun and were happy without him.

It wouldn’t be the first time that someone he loved would have grown tired of him.

(And who was he to complain about the tension everyone had picked up from their summer holidays, when he himself could still picture so clearly the day he had gone to London with his father, eating ice-cream in st. James park, only to feel tears gather at his eyes looking at the family playing frisbee on the grass, caught between the desire for the pony-tailed woman to turn around and see him and the desire to escape and never come back.)

Sirius turned sharply around the corner, trails of grey ash fluttering to the floor from the parcel he was gripping tight against his chest. Remus knew that it had came from Sirius’ family, but he did not know the significance of the ashes. Maybe if he did, he could have helped Sirius, instead of uselessly following him around repeating platitudes.

Around the corner was the library. Sirius slammed through the doors like a man on a mission, which he was.

“Do you think he’s going to start a fight?” Panted Peter from beside Remus, where he had finally caught up with them.

“Undoubtedly.” Remus answered and hurried after Sirius. He would be there for him. Whatever it was he decided to do.

* * *

 Regulus Black was irritated.

Snape was walking him through an arithmancy problem and doing it in the most condescending way possible. Snape was brilliant, there was no way around it, but where his brilliant mind easily danced through arithmancy equations, potion formulas and spell theory, it completely failed to decipher this to a level comprehensible for anyone else.

Avery was happy snarling and unsubtly intimidating Snape into writing his homework for him. Mulciber was happy achieving the same result with his clueless friendliness and oblivious smiles. Regulus actually wanted to learn, to understand his schoolwork. He didn’t want to be a fool and he didn’t want to be treated like a fool.

“Can you walk me through it one more time.”

If there had ever been a situation where his good breeding was being tested, it was now. Glancing across the table, he could see cousin Narcissa hide a snigger behind her hand. Regulus glowered at her, and Snape sighed like a martyr.

Cousin Bellatrix was unabashedly staring. She, like most of in the Slytherin house, found Snape to be terribly exciting, if from a safe distance. His half-blood savageness and complete lack of good breeding was a source of morbid fascination to many. The wizarding side in him shined through when it came to his intelligence, but his muggle-blood was eminent in his manners, looks and general bearing.

Right now, Regulus wished that he could be instructed by a well-bred, proper wizard, instead of having to deal with a mudblood.

“You are not listening! It doesn’t matter what the numerical values of the _letters_ in a spell are, what matters are the _phonemes_. Look here. you have to separate the nucleus and coda, before you can start working out any mathematical model. Are you using the Agrippan or Chaldean method for the equations?”

Regulus knew that as a pureblood he possessed the superior mind, but sometimes it was not an easy truth to remember.

“Yes, do try to keep up dear cousin. With such _superb_ tutoring-“ Bellatrix didn’t get to finish her clever jab that insulted both Regulus and Snape in the same breath. Narcissa had kicked her underneath the table, her face staying perfectly serene.

Snape didn’t seem to even notice, as he was busy crossing over what seemed to be over half of Regulus’ work, rolling his eyes in despair at the work Regulus had been quite proud of.

Regulus however didn’t get the change to find out exactly what percentage of his calculations were rubbish, as suddenly there is a presence behind them. He first notices the presence via the alarmed look that Narcissa adopts, a split second before he is showered with something grey and flaky.

“And what do we have here?! A group of slimy, _traitorous,_ snakes!”

The ashes float in the air, stick into his throat, burn in his eyes, burrow deep into his hair and make him cough. In front of him, he can see burned edges of muggle money swirling and floating around.

Sirius’ secret stash. The one he had seen him fill underneath the loose floorboard. The one he had promised not to tell mother about.

The one he had told mother about, because it wasn’t right.

(And how could Sirius ever think that it was right. How could he ever justify _working for a muggle_ to himself. The heir of the family, sneaking off to play cashier in some muggle hole! Whoring would have been preferable as far as mother's opinion was concerned!)

“Sirius-“ Regulus spat flakes of burned paper from his mouth.

“Don’t you even dare say my name. Not now. Not after this.”

“Why, you seem agitated, dear cousin.”

“Shut up Bella, or I will shut you up.” The wand in his brother’s hand trembled. Regulus knew enough of his brother that it was not a good sign.

“Black, out of all the miserable-“ Snape’s tone would have been easier to take seriously if he also hadn’t been showered with ashes and was now sporting a look of white-haired fury.

“Shut up Snivellus, real wizards are talking.”

“Bold of you to accuse your brother for being a traitor, when you yourself associate with known bloodtraitors every day,” snarled Avery. “And I’m being kind not calling you a bloodtraitor yourself!”

Narcissa gasped, as did Regulus. He had his disagreements with Sirius, but to accuse him of such-

“Well maybe I am. Maybe I would rather be a bloodtraitor than endure even the same air you breath, you inbred fuckwits!”

“Who is in bread?” Mulciber cocked his head and blinked confusedly.

“Aren’t you an inbred fuckwit yourself-“ Snape started, but was interrupted by Avery’s angry “Shut up Snape!” Snape shut up.

“You were the one who went against mother’s word! She told you not to mess around with muggle things! If you weren’t so wicked!-“ Regulus floundered. A memory of mother dragging screaming and struggling Sirius into the red room flashed in his mind. Mother accusing Sirius of being such wicked, _wicked_ child-

(a memory violently avoided the whole summer, of going into the red room with Kreacher, opening the ornate chest in the corner-)

Sirius also went pale, before his dark eyes flashed dangerously.

Regulus found himself blasted against a bookshelf, ears ringing, and mouth wet with blood from where he had bit his tongue.

Somewhere above him, all hell had broken loose.

Struggling to his feet, Regulus caught a glimpse of cousin Bellatrix standing on the table, shooting a hex and laughing like this was the most fun he had had in years. His brother was exchanging quick wand-work with Snape, who would have been victorious if the rest of the marauders hadn’t somehow found themselves by Sirius’ side, like they always seemed to be.

Cousin Narcissa blocked one of the spells flying around, looking very uncomfortable in a clear contrast to her sister.

Finding his own wand, Regulus tried to assess the situation and decide where to aim.

The situation was beyond chaotic. Snape was on the ground, spitting out something bubbling and his mudblood friend had also materialised from somewhere and was trying to help him up. Snape seemed to be resisting her efforts, while trying to gather himself at the same time.

Mulciber was lying unconscious on the floor, but Bellatrix was flinging hexes quick enough for two people. Narcissa seemed to be caught between desire to disappear and having to block Potter’s attack. Avery, being nowhere to be seen, had apparently not been caught between such problem and had simply opted to disappear.

Lupin had his wand drawn, but looked hesitant to use it, hanging behind Sirius like an anxious shadow. Pettigrew was flinging hexes, but his aim was either tremendously bad, or he was simply excited to add to the general mayhem without any higher goal.

Before Regulus could take aim, a loud bang rang through the air, and the shrill whistle that followed cut straight to the eardrums, making everyone drop their wands on instinct and cover their poor ears.

Madam Pince was standing before them, wand raised up and face like the wrath of god.

“What-! What is the meaning of this _hulabaloo_ in my library!”

Well- well fuck.

* * *

 

Peter Pettigrew was inappropriately giddy.

Dumbledore was staring at all of them from behind his chair and he had not even offered anyone any candies. His eyes were not twinkling from behind his half-moon spectacles. It was all very un-Dumbledorish of him, who usually treated the marauders as unexpected but welcome guests in his office every time they ended up there.

Even so, being summoned up here gave Peter a sense of a rush, which he so enjoyed.

Most people believed that Peter was a bit of a coward, and sometimes even openly questioned how he had ended up in Gryffindor. Sometimes those people were Peter himself.

But while Peter would readily admit that he was not as brave as James or Sirius, there was the rush that he enjoyed more than anything. Pulling off a prank with the marauders and not getting caught. Getting caught but charming their way back to the teachers’ good graces. With James and Sirius, everything was just a bit more exciting, bit more glamorous.

James and Sirius were the antithesis to Peter’s dull and uninspiring family. The small house in the muggle suburbs. Wizard parents who had taken the easy way out and settled amongst muggles and found their life to be a disappointment, but instead of taking any action they settled into their disappointment.

James and Sirius never settled for a disappointment, they always took action and Peter adored them for it. He loved the way he felt like part of the pure-blood elite solely by hanging around Sirius and James, both heirs to families that were not trapped amongst muggles. He loved the thrill of sneaking around with a werewolf, the rush of being so close to a dark creature.

He loved to feel like he mattered. That Blacks and Potters and other important people _saw_ him. Dumbledore wouldn’t even know that he existed if he weren’t part of the marauders, but here he was now, looking straight at peter with familiarity.

This was not a life that would end like his father’s, forgotten and unimportant. Peter had friends in high places.

“Might someone share some light to what just happened in the library?” Dumbledore asked the group. The marauders were lounging around like they were in Dumbledore’s office every Wednesday. In truth, they almost were.

Snape and Evans were standing next to each other, but in a very hostile manner. This made James look at them with satisfaction from time to time. The Evans-Snape paradise was finally starting to have troubles.

The Black sisters looked indignant to be dragged to the headmaster’s office, like common trouble makers.

Regulus just looked lost.

“And why aren’t Mulciber and Avery here. Seems to me like they are getting away without any consequences, again.” James pointed out. Peter preened a bit at the tone. It wasn’t any student that had the guts to stand up to Dumbledore like that.

Avery was not part of the fight that Irma had to break apart, and Mulciber was found stunned on the floor. Being unconscious is a good argument against him having participated to the fight to the effect you all did.

James snorted loudly and derisively. 

“And as a headmaster, it is my discretion to choose who serves detention for this incident and who doesn’t, not yours Mr. Potter. Otherwise there would be nothing tethering you four trouble-makers.”

The headmaster winked at the marauders.

“By Irma’s account, I have decided that everyone who was at the scene with their wand in their hand, will be serving detention tonight with Hagrid.”

“With the _gamekeeper_!”

“For how long?”

Said both Black sisters simultaneously.

“As long as it takes for your group to do the task that Hagrid will give you.”

“No.”

“Dear Miss. Black, this is not a negotiation.”

Bellatrix kept staring at Dumbledore as if she wanted to skin him but did not say anything more.

“detention _with_ the Slytherins?” Sirius took up the objections, eyeing his brother in a way that made everyone know where his main problem lay.

“Indeed. Maybe some hard, manual labour together will bring you together. Now, I suggest that you go spend the rest of the evening out of trouble and are ready and prepared by midnight.”

Everyone looked very displeased by Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes that suggested a joke at all of their expense.

“But we do have classes tomorrow morning,” Narcissa tried to reason.

“And maybe tomorrow you will be too tired to create more trouble in my school.”

In a mutinous silence, the students filed out of the office, the marauders already bent close together.

“Detention with the Slytherins, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Sirius please. Can we at least serve this detention out of the way before getting new ones?”

“Remus don’t be like that. This is a perfect opportunity, Peter what do you say?”

“I’m game.”

Peter was always game.

* * *

 

Narcissa Black was resigned.

She was resigned to many things, the detention of tonight in the end being the least of them. She was resigned to the fact that her cousin would never come back to the good graces of the society, no matter how much Regulus might wish otherwise. She was resigned to the tension in the school, to the whispered conspiracies in the corridors and the creeping way politics made its way into every conversation.

She was resigned to mother locking herself into the library to cry where no one could see, after Andi had left.

She was trying to be anything but resigned to the news of her engagement.

Sitting on a recess in the common room, Narcissa let her forehead rest against the glass window, staring at the greenish water of the lake. She thought that she might have seen a figure of a mermaid pass by in the distance but could not be sure.

It was calming, letting her eyes rest on the dark waters beyond the glass. You could almost imagine being submerged, floating in the gentle darkness.

She fingered the expensive parchment in her hands, with its expert cursive script declaring words of love. Words picked carefully, flowing easily in their compliments and tender allusions for future. They were pretty and skilfully chosen, and devoid of any real emotion.

Passionate love was the death of sensibility and any chance of true happiness, Narcissa knew this, had witnessed it first-hand this summer, and it wasn’t any silly romanticism that was making her so uneasy. It wasn’t that she doubted Lucius Malfoy’s character, or that her heart would have been set on anyone else. And She didn’t think herself to be difficult girl who liked to be contrary just for the sake of it.

Her mother was a modern-thinking witch, who had promised to all of her daughters that they would be allowed to finish their education in Hogwarts before their weddings. No modern wizard wanted a wife who was stupid or couldn’t hold an interesting conversation. The days of wives being hidden in their chambers when visitors came over were gone and not missed.  

Narcissa’s wedding would be almost two years off, and still she wished that the letter had not arrived.

Truth to be told, there had been a certain enjoyment in uncertain future. She hadn’t known where she would move after her studies were over. Who she would marry. What future would bring. For many, this uncertainty was a source of anxiety, and for girls coming from lesser houses it might have been different. Narcissa never had to doubt that her match would be impressive, only to dream of the different shapes it might take.

Now the mystery was gone. Now she knew that she would become the mistress of Malfoy Manor, dining on peacock, walking the gardens with Lucius Malfoy, signing her letters as Mrs. Malfoy, giving birth to (Merlin bless her) several little Malfoy heirs.

Surely, she couldn’t have imagined a life more splendid, more blessed than that.

(Expect that she could. They were girlish fancies, but she couldn’t help them. Because all her fancies were unlimited, easy to dispel or built on, inconsequential and hazy like vapours. Silly daydreams that didn’t bind her to anything.)

She was afraid that this was the same uneasiness that had driven Andromeda to her folly and consequently mother to her despair and father to her anger. Had not driven Bellatrix to much of anything that she hadn’t already always been, and wasn’t that even more scary.

Young witches should be careful to keep their flighty emotions hidden and guarded, for modesty in both actions and thoughts was the best ornament a witch could ever own. Narcissa knew this and she was trying as hard as she could. Despite her best efforts, emotions were wreaking havoc in her mind.

Fear of the future. Not the modest nervousness of a maiden, but deep-seated dread of being trapped in a life that would turn against her. Unexplained loathing that from time to time would grip her as she thought of the courtship before her. Bouts of wild passion as she gazed at the Forbidden Forest and the inappropriate thoughts the dark paths, the twisting branches, and the wild animals running untethered underneath the branches, kindled in her.

“Hello Cissy.”

She was also resigned to the presence of Bellatrix in her life.

“Hello Bella.”

“Aunt Walpurga is right, Dumbledore has lost any respect for proper wizardkind that he might have ever had. Serving detention with that half-breed servant. And with mudbloods and bloodtraitors, as if they hadn’t been the ones to attack _us_.”  

“Indeed.” Narcissa answered and hoped that her sister would leave. Narcissa was in one of her moods and didn’t wish anyone to notice it. She couldn’t stand it if mother started to watch her the same way she had watched Andi the last few months before she eloped.

“I hope that _he_ can get rid of the old fool soon. This school is losing all of its dignity with Dumbledore in charge.”

“I quite agree.”

“Well, hopefully _he_ can fix things up.”

“Bella please, you know how politics bore me.”

Bellatrix huffed in disgust. “You are such a little _flower,_ Narcissa. One would think you are still stuck in the last century. _He_ wants young witches to join the cause just as wizards.”

“Well, I’m glad that you and Rodolphus have something to do together.”

“You know that I’m not talking about Rodolphus.”

She did know. She was just trying to avoid the subject.

“No matter. We are going to take action soon. Very soon.” Bellatrix smiled so happily that Narcissa’s blood immediately ran cold. She remembered that smile, in all of its girlish glory. Could remember Artemis, and the dirt under her fingernails, and Bellatrix smiling through the whole ordeal.

She didn’t ask what action. She just rested her forehead back against the glass and watched from the corner of her eye as Bellatrix went away, with a little skip on her step.

Suddenly she felt less resigned for their detention and more scared.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Agrippan method and Chaldean method are both real branches of arithmancy tradition. In Agrippan method, the letters of a recent version of the Latin alphabet are assigned numerical values 1-9. In Chaldean method number 9 is not used. Phonemes of course are the linguistic term for how spoken language is constructed. Nucleus and coda are parts of the syllable broken down to its phonemes. My personal take on arithmancy is, that it is needed when constructing and studying spells. In order for spell to work, it's phonetic construction needs to be balanced with its numerical value. You can't just string syllables together and make a spell out of it. 
> 
> -I realise that Andromeda is the middle child, but I had already written so much of this fic before I realised my mistake, that I simply don't care to fix it. Andromed in this universe is the eldest daughter.
> 
> -Leave a comment, or come say Hi directly to my tumblr: https://myyttiseenloveenlangennut.tumblr.com


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the people of Gaul are completely devoted to religion, and for this reason those who are greatly affected by diseases and in the dangers of battle either sacrifice human victims or vow to do so using the Druids as administrators to these sacrifices, since it is judged that unless for a man’s life a man’s life is given back, the will of the immortal gods cannot be placated.
> 
> -Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico

 

 

 

The dark forest opened before them like a mouth of a giant, waiting to swallow them whole. The rows of trees rose up from the ground like pillars of temples, or fangs of a savage beasts. Behind the trees, darkness awaited.

“It’s idiotic.” Grumbled Severus next to Lily. “If I was a teacher I would never make students gather my potions ingredients from the forest, especially during the night. What do they think is going to happen? With _those_ people in here.” He glanced at the marauders with disdain.  

“Well, too bad you’re not.” Lily answered, only half paying attention to her friend. The forest looked even more forbidding than usual and the air was cold. She was still cross with him, even if Severus might not have gotten the memo, or more predictably did not care. She had also noted that Severus did not seem worried about the Black sisters being with them, even if Lily thought that between the Marauders and those girls, she trusted the Marauders more.

Still, she couldn’t brush asides Severus’ point. It was slightly worrying that they were sending a group of students this big into the forbidden forest with only Hagrid to look after them. Especially during the night. What if something were to happen? With this mix of people, it should have been more than just a passing concern for the headmaster.

On her left, the marauders stood huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. On her right, Bellatrix Lestrange smiled at her. Her smile was full of dark secrets, and instinctively Lily took a step closer to Severus. She thought that her desire to not be forced into a dark forest with these people was entirely justified.

 

“All right kids!” Hagrid’s familiar voice called out and comforted Lily in the otherwise discomforting situation.

“You all have your instructions, and your jars for collecting shadebeetles. I have your wands with me, and you will be handed them back once the detention is over.”

“You cannot expect us to go to the forest wandless.” Narcissa Black sneered, her condescending tone almost masking her genuine fear.

“You will be accompanied by me at all times, you will be quite safe.” Hagrid dismissed Narcissa Black’s concerns with a wave of his sturdy crossbow. She did not look comforted and her frown was an exact opposite to her sister’s face which tried to hide its gleefulness poorly. Out of everything in this situation, it was Bellatrix Black’s smile that scared Lily the most.

“As I said, we will all be all quite safe. We are not going very far off into the forest and we will all stick together. Understood? Good, let’s get going. The sooner we start; the sooner we can go to our nice comfy beds.”

The herd of sullen students followed Hagrid as his long strides led them all inside the jaws of the forbidden forest. Lily intellectually knew that she had been inside this same forest before. This wasn’t new alien territory. But then she had been guided by a teacher, in full daylight, and on those times the forest had seemed beautiful, full of life and interesting creatures. Now, after the sunset, it was entirely different world.

When Hagrid showed them the fallen tree from which they were to collect the beetles, Lily was happy that they did not need to continue marching further into the unknown darkness.

Digging for the beetles from the soft, decaying, wood, and from the cold ground beneath the fallen trunk, was a job that while not especially clean was very calming. There was only the light of her lantern, the cold dirt on her fingers and the black insects that she would drop in her jar. Dig and drop. Dig and drop.

She would have even enjoyed it if it wasn’t for how she couldn’t stop dropping suspicious glances at her fellow detention goers. The marauders were still huddled close. Were they planning something? Were they just complaining amongst themselves? What could they do without a wand?  Were they looking at Severus more often than necessary?

Was she avoiding looking at Severus? Surely not? She glanced at her friend, his curtain of hair hiding his face as he worked next to Lily. Should she move closer to show that she still had his back? Should she move further away to show that she was unhappy with how he had been acting lately? Would Severus understand her unsaid message? Was she overthinking?

Somewhere in the night a branch snapped, and Lily flinched. She couldn’t quite place it, but something was wrong. She had heard something, but-

Severus lifted his face behind the veil of his hair and stared at Lily, who had stopped working and was now sitting still and strung tight as a bow.

“Something is wrong.” Lily whispered to Severus.

“what?”

Lily could hear the note of scepticism in her best friend’s tone, and right now was too wound up to have a rational approach to Severus.

“just listen to me for once.” She hissed. “There is something in the woods with us-“

“Like animals-“ Severus hissed back, but he did not sound certain.

“No. Something-“

A branch snapped behind them. Now others had stilled too and were glancing around themselves uncertainly.

“I don’t think that is an animal!”

 

The two friends were startled from their whispers by Bellatrix Black quickly standing up, brushing the front of her robes and smiling like Christmas had just come early. 

“The detention is over I see.”

Hagrid took a step towards the cheerfully rebellious seventh year girl, trying to hide his own uncertainty in the face of such nonchalant disrespect.

“Now here miss Black! The detention is certainly not over. It isn’t over until- “

There was a flash of red light that illuminated Bellatrix Black’s teeth bared in a hungry grin. There was also a grunt of pain from Hagrid as the red light collided with his back.

Lily let the jar slip from her fingers as she scrambled to stand up, her hands instinctively reaching for her wand and finding nothing. The forest around them had come alive with voices and Lily felt terrified.

“The detention _is_ over half-breed!” Called out an unfamiliar voice between the trees. Lily kept scrambling backwards, her hands still reaching for something, anything. They found the cold and clammy hand of Severus. Lily did not turn, did not see her friend, but the shape of his hand was familiar and pressed against hers felt comforting and good. Not safe or calming, but good. She was terrified. She was ready to fight. She was preparing to run. She was frozen to her spot. She was feeling everything and nothing at once and was glad to at least not feel alone.

 

 

Narcissa had known that something would go wrong the moment she had stepped out of her dormitory. She didn’t really believe in instinct, or third eye, or whatever feminine intuition witches were supposed to possess, but she did believe in her own ability to read her sister and she had known seeing Bellatrix’ eyes that something unpleasant would happen. It was a skill that in the whole world only Narcissa seemed to possess, and sometimes Narcissa thought the whole world was blind and foolish for it.

She had been kneeling near Bellatrix and Regulus, the three Blacks (for there were only three true Blacks in here, Sirius at this point keeping the name out of mercy from his parents) together, as was proper, when Bellatrix rose up and all hell rose up with her. The first stupefy that had hit the groundskeeper in the back was only the beginning. 

There was shrill laughter in the air and soon second and third stupefies followed to hit the massive groundskeeper, who was spinning around trying to see from where he was being attacked.

Bellatrix giggled and then screamed: “Take him down boys!”

“I am no boy!” answered one of the hidden voices, almost familiar to Narcissa. She was sure that had the voice not been shrouded in the darkness of the forest, she would have known to whom it belonged to.

“I warn you! I am armed!” Bellowed the groundskeeper, holding up his crossbow “This doesn’t need to get messy!”

“Oooh. But you wouldn’t hurt a student.” Cooed the voice, stepping into the light of the lanterns from behind a tree. The voice turned out to be a seventh year Slytherin girl Alecto, one of the Carrow siblings, a good friend of Bellatrix, and by proxy a friend of Narcissa too. Narcissa did not right now feel any friendliness towards the girl, dressed in plain black robe that was not the school uniform, as she smiled and raised both her arms up, inviting Hagrid to shoot her.

As expected Alecto did not get an arrow through the chest. Instead the groundskeeper lowered his weapon slightly, so it was not directly pointed fatally towards the student.

“Very funny. You are going to be in heaps of trouble when Slughorn finds out that- “

“Oh please! Won’t someone just shut the half-breed up!” Alecto theatrically called out. 

“Miss. Carr- “The gigantic man started to say, clearly at the last tethers of his patience, but whatever he was going to say never got said. Four jets of red light flew from behind the trees and knocked Hagrid over, the huge man toppling like a giant tree.

“You’re so impatient sister!” laughed the second figure in dark robes as he practically skipped to them, wand twirling in his hands. Narcissa recognised him as Amycus Carrow and was instantly more aware of the gravity of the situation. Amycus had graduated three years ago. If he was sneaking into Hogwarts grounds, there must be more of a reason than just Alecto playing a stupid joke.

Amycus was followed by three others, two boys and one girl. They were a seventh year slytherin boy and a sixth year Ravenclaw girl. Narcissa recognised both of them to be faces that had at some point or another made an appearance in the Black family’s exclusive social gatherings. The third newcomer was Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix’ fiancé who had graduated last year.

Bellatrix made a beeline for Rodolphus and gave him an entirely indecent welcome. Narcissa had the urge to cover Regulus’ eyes, who was standing next to her frozen and unsure.

“What is going on?!” She demanded instead, staring at her sister with something she hoped would come out as anger instead of fear.

“We are going to have a partaayyy-!” cheered Alecto, dancing into Narcissa’s line of vision, pulling a bottle from the folds of her robes and laughing. “We are going to do some fucking magic!”

As a complete opposite to Alecto’s almost innocent sounding cheeriness came the harsh, clipped sound of Hekta Lovehart, the sixth year Ravenclaw, as she shouted a curse so fast that no one could even catch the words, and only the smouldering earth where her curse had hit proved her lightning fast abilities. Sirius Black was frozen on all fours on the ground, his nose inches from the burned ground.

“Do not move, or I will kill you.” Announced Hekta, her tone steady and toneless. Even Alecto raised an eyebrow at that, but then recovered and swung a familiar arm over Narcissa’s shoulders. “Were gonna have fuuuun- “She whispered, her breath smelling like she had already tasted from the bottle in her hand.

Hekta looked like she had never in her life tasted a drop of alcohol, nor had fun, as she strode over to fallen Hagrid and with economic movements collected the wands of the detention goers. Her eyes never left Sirius, who had just moments ago tried to leap towards fallen Hagrid.

“Do not think to resist, or I will curse you. You will not be faster than me.”

Narcissa felt that this was a bit of an overkill from Hekta’s part, as she was currently holding all of their wands as hostage. Then Remus Lupin honest to Merlin growled, eyes flashing eerily yellowish in the darkness, and Narcissa wasn’t so sure anymore.

Hekta now had the other slyhterin boy, (Edwin Graywoods, the name bubbled into Narcissa’s mind) standing with her. He too was pointing his wands at the detention group, which had now split into those standing with the assailants, (Narcissa, Regulus) and those being threatened by them (the rest). Standing next to Hekta, Edwin looked awkward with his wand-hand trembling ever so slightly, like he couldn’t decide who he should be preparing to curse first. Hekta in contrast was stone still, only her eyes following every twitch made by the students standing before her.

 

Snape and Lily were holding hands, and Snape looked like he would have liked to move to shield Evans but was too afraid to move. Evans looked like she was trying to kill Hekta with her eyes.

 

The marauders were gathered close together, everything about them looking loaded, like they were just a breath away from bursting into action. Narcissa had never thought about the group of Gryffindors as anything but a collection of clowns, but now there was a hint of something feral and terrifying in their body language.

 

“Narcissa!” It was Alecto, holding Narcissa’s wand. Carelessly she threw it towards Narcissa, who barely caught the flying wand, but instantly felt better as it touched her hand.

“What is going on in here?” Narcissa asked the drunk girl, feeling the most comfortable speaking with Alecto.

Alecto took another swig from her bottle and laughed. “History is going on in here. We are going to make history!”

“Don’t drink all that by yourself!” Amycus swiped the bottle from his sister, and also took a long gulp. “Don’t worry. You’ll get the front seats.” He aimed both his words and the bottle towards Narcissa. “You and lil Regsie both.” The bottle made a little wiggle.

“Yes, but what are you doing!” Narcissa hissed out, refusing the drink, now more than little frustrated. She didn’t like unknown situations, especially if they involved her sister. Unfortunately, Amycus was not impressed with Narcissa’s tone, and only took another long drink. People who were used to associating with Bellatrix were rarely intimidated by Narcissa.

 

Speaking of Bellatrix, she appeared with Rodolphus, holding an old leather-bound book in her hands. She smiled widely and opened the book; which pages were full of small text and medieval looking illustrations. Squinting closer, Narcissa could see that the biggest picture on the bottom of the right-side page illustrated several figures in robes standing in a stone-circle, holding sickles. The picture was not clear to begin with, and the darkness did not help, but Narcissa thought that there might have been another figure laying in the ground at the robed figures’ feet.

 

Bellatrix pulled the book away from Narcissa’s line of sight, clearly too excited to stay still for too long and Rodolphus took the book back, putting it back in the bag he was carrying. Narcissa did not feel any more enlightened than she had been before.

“Where’s the map?” Bellatrix turned away from her sister to address her fiancé. “We need to- “

They all turned like clockwork when shouting interrupted them

 

The marauders had finally unwounded, Sirius Black was running towards Hekta and Edwin, his teeth bared, and his face twisted. He looked remarkably like his mother in his fury. Regulus made a little keening sound when Hekta’s curse made compact with the older and rasher Black brother, and he crumbled into the ground soundlessly. Potter had been behind Black, and he made it much closer than Black. Edwin only barely managed to stop the Gryffindor’s golden boy, Potter falling to the ground with his hand only an inch away from Edwin’s wand.

But the marauders did not consist of only two people, and their biggest strength had always been their team work. Therefore, Edwin did not have time to relish his victory before something small scuttled behind him and Peter Pettigrew appeared behind his back, seemingly out of nowhere, and throwing his entire weight over the other boy. Edwin was no impressive sight when it came to physical size and went down easily and with a shrill scream.

Remus Lupin, who had aimed for Hekta, did not have as good luck. Lupin had gone low, counting on being unseen while Black and Potter took the spotlight. He collided with Hekta’s legs and made both of them stumble to the ground. Hekta however, was not fazed by the sudden loss of her personal gravity, and Lupin crumbled unconscious on top of Hekta as her nonverbal stunner did its work.

She rolled from under the now unconscious Lupin and was met with the sight of Peter Pettigrew holding Edwin in a choke-hold, Edwin’s own wand pointed towards the boy’s throat.

“Let my friends go!” The usually so comical and nonthreatening boy threatened. “I mean it.”

Edwin whimpered slightly as Pettigrew’s nails dug into the tender flesh at his throat.

The other intruders stalked closer, their wands held up, fascinated by this new change. Pettigrew adjusted himself more fully behind Edwin and angled himself so that his new human shield shielded him from all of their attackers.

“Oooh myyy Merllliinn~ This is sooo exciting!” Alecto giggled, her wand up, but wobbling. Tonight, everything seemed to be a delight to her.

Bellatrix was not giggling, but her eyes were dancing with delight too. Or they were, until there was a quick yell of: “Lily no!” from scared sounding Snape and then a whirlwind of red hair tackled Bellatrix who had sauntered too close to the pair without paying them attention. 

Bellatrix let out a sound that resembled an angry cat, and the sound was joined by another howl, this time from agony, as both Peter and Edwin rolled to the ground; Edwin clutching his burned neck, and Peter his hand that was blistered and slightly smoking. Hekta stood watching both of them, her wand pointed steadily where Peter’s hand had been posed over Edwin’s throat. Between them lay the smoked remainders of Edwin’s wand that Peter had had pointed at the boy’s own neck.

 

The tussle between Bellatrix and Evans was over just as quickly, when Amycus stepped forwards, grabbed Evans by her long red hair and physically threw her off of Bellatrix. This act was soon followed by as stunner and then all the Gryffindors were down. With a slight flick of Hekta’s wand, even Pettigrew fell silent into unconsciousness and suddenly they were all surrounded by silence; if you didn’t count Edwin’s whimpers. Snape, crouched over Evan’s limp form was almost unnaturally quiet, even his breathing barely audible in the tense silence.

Bellatrix was sporting a split lip as she stood up again and it almost seemed that there was a sliver of more madness lurking behind those dark eyes than usual. She touched the blood on her mouth and then looked at the mudblood laying still on the ground with something cold and final. Snape had gone entirely still, and Narcissa could not blame him. Bellatrix liked Snape well enough when they were studying together, but he would have been a fool to think that he wasn’t in danger then, kneeling next to Evans at that moment.

The tense seconds passed, and Bellatrix turned away.

“Let’s move then!”

“Move? Where?” Narcissa grabbed her sister’s hand, demanding answers. Feeling the old foreboding that preceded every time Bellatrix was hiding something especially foul in her thoughts. How the world failed to see how cruel her mind truly was, Narcissa would never understand. How mother failed to see it, Narcissa hoped to never understand.

(And maybe Andromeda had understood even better than Narcissa, but she didn’t like to think about that.)

“To the stones of course!” Bellatrix answered, like this was all somehow very obvious.

“Look, here.” Rodolphus appeared, as smooth, cultured, and decadent, as Bellatrix was wild. They fit together terrifyingly well.

Rodolphus was holding a map in his hands and was showing it to Narcissa under a faint lumos from his wand. 

“We have been socialising lately and going through some of the old family libraries. Now that certain arts are back in favour again, we thought that there would be no harm in learning more. It is all quite fascinating isn’t it. Anyway, there is something we have meant to try for a while. It would be so very interesting wouldn’t it?”

“What?”

Hekta appeared, footsteps silent and purposeful, to answer Narcissa. “The druidic rites. There is a circle in the forbidden forest, if you know where to look. Old circle, older than the school, older than the founders, older than books. We found mentions of it in the Lestrange library in one of our evening parties.”

“ _We_ found.” Ropolphus corrected nodding towards Amycus. “You have been sitting here, in school.”

Hekta’s nostrils flared a bit at Rodolphus’ patronising tone, but her voice did not betray her annoyance.

“Yes, well, we are all here now.”

“yaaaas! We are! Let’s go!” Alecto had kept her good cheer up. “What are we waiting for?”

“Indeed! How many are we going to take with us?” Amycus indicated towards the now unconscious Gryffindors.

“All. We might as well.” Bellatrix answered.

 

Severus Snape, it seemed, had finally gathered his spine from somewhere and stepped up in front of Evan’s body. “Don’t touch her!”

“Cute. But you should really let go of your embarrassing crushes. Being that pathetic is not a good look on you.”

Snape answered to Bellatrix’s taunt by planting his feet firmer on the ground and twisting his face into something resembling a snarl but honestly quite ridiculous looking. Still, Narcissa had to give it to the poor boy that not everyone would stand their ground against Bellatrix.

“I won’t let you-“

“Without a wand? Don’t make me laugh!”

“I won’t let you touch her!”

“And here I thought that we were friends.” Bellatrix pouted. She was obviously enjoying herself immensely.

The darkness behind Bellatrix’s eyes was formed from her natural meanness, but the darkness that was starting to pool behind the black eyes of Snape was born of desperation, and Narcissa had a feeling that Bellatrix was not being entirely wise to dismiss it as easily as she did.  

 

So Narcissa did what came naturally to her and stepped between a soon occurring disaster and her sister.

“I will carry your friend.”

Snape did not look any happier than he had before, only turned his snarl towards Narcissa, but Narcissa had learned to wield politeness as her weapon and just stepped closer, whispering in privately in soothing tones to the ear of the younger Slytherin: “You are outnumbered. They will only knock you out too if you put up a fight. I don’t like this situation either. No, don’t look at me like that, I am your friend. I will not harm Evans, I promise, but for now I think that we should all act polite and civilised and not escalate the situation. All right?”

It almost made Narcissa pity the poor unfortunate half-blood, to see the struggle behind the black eyes, and the eventual defeat that settled in like a familiar guest. This boy was familiar with lost battles and the futility of struggling against something beyond your control.

So Narcissa ended up levitating the Gryffindor girl and found it in herself to even be careful with it. Sure, she was a mudbood, but that didn’t mean that Narcissa had to abandon her civilised nature.

Looking at the others however, levitating their victims up, made Narcissa doubt that she would be allowed the choice for civility very much longer.

Their group started moving deeper into the darkness. Snape sticking close to Narcissa’s side, and Regulus meekly following along, looking dazed and sneaking glances at his unconscious brother.

Narcissa almost thought to ask what they should do with the knocked-out gamekeeper, but a bout of insight made her keep her tongue, for she had a feeling that if she were to remind her new unwillingly acquired comrades of the half-breed, their solution would not be civilised at all.

 

 

The others couldn’t see it in the faint lumos-light, but Regulus was crying. He was doing it silently, as he had learned to do long ago, but a small trail of tears was stubbornly making their way down his cheeks. Regulus was infinitely grateful that the darkness hid his weakness.

Turning his head towards right, Regulus once again glimpsed the pale form of his brother being dragged near the forest floor, the tips of his hair collecting twigs and moss from the ground.

Every time Sirius’ head knocked onto something, be it a rock or a log, Regulus winced inwardly. He had spent the entire summer trying to hate his brother and had already forgotten how painful it was to see Sirius hurting.

Amycus on the other hand had no reservations of manhandling the elder Black brother, levitating him near enough to the ground for Sirius to get knocked about, and he even seemed to enjoy his position as someone who could so humiliate the rightful Black heir, even if said heir’s position at this point was very tenacious one. The politics of the Old and Noble Houses were deeply engraved and cruel in their manifestations.

Regulus would have liked to ask where they were dragging his brother, but he didn’t dare. Bellatrix frightened him, and honestly speaking the Carrows weren’t much better. They hadn’t given him his wand back, not even when he had asked Edwin, the least intimidating of the group. Edwin had said that Regulus wouldn’t need his wand as long as he stayed with them.

So, Regulus had done what he always did, he shut his mouth and obeyed. He put one foot in front of the other and tried to not to trip on any roots. They walked on for what felt like an eternity, The Carrows getting steadily more drunk and Bellatrix getting more and more impatient.

It took Regulus a moment to notice that their group had stopped, and it took another moment before Regulus could notice any reason for it. His eyes did however finally register that they had arrived at an area that more or less was a clearing in the woods. In the middle of the treeless opening stood a stone circle. The stones looked ancient, half covered in moss and jagging up from the earth like ancient, giant fangs. Some of them were halfway to falling down, and some had already succumbed to gravity, laying on the grass, leaving openings in the otherwise fairly even structure.

“Look it’s here! It really is here!” Squealed Alecto, running towards the stones and happily embracing one. She had been sipping from her bottle the whole walk and now found herself teetering and sliding down, while trying to keep her grip on the edges of the rock. “Noooo—bad stone! Stop swaying!”

“I told you so! Didn’t I?” Amycus happily dropped Sirius down, letting him fold into a heap of Black ropes. The other Gryffindors were dropped into the same heap, the only expectation being Evans who was settled down much more gently by Narcissa. Snape was again glued to the red head’s side and for the looks of it, was trying to wake her up without much success.

Regulus took a look around and saw the other Slytherins gathered close together in discussion. Biting his cheek, Regulus hesitated for a moment before coming to a decision and nervously fluttered to Sirius’ side. Sirius’ cheek was still warm against Regulus’ hand and Regulus let his hand linger for a moment, swallowing down the strong current of tears that threatened to push their way through. This was the closest he had been to Sirius the whole year. Maybe even longer. Now that he thought about it, the last time they had voluntarily been on affectionate touching distance had been before Sirius’ first year at Hogwarts. Then it had all started to fall apart.

 

Regulus was shaken from his ponderings by a low and angry voice hissing his name.

“Black! Black!”

The hisser was Severus Snape, staring at Regulus with something that could be either hate or panic, or bit of both.

“Black, what is going on in here?! Why have you dragged us here!?”

As usual, the older Slytherin boy had a way of speaking to you, which made you instantly grind your teeth. Regulus however was one of those people that counted Snape as his friend, after a fashion, and usually shrugged away Snape’s nasty tone of voice. The situation however was not helping Regulus in keeping his fraying nerves on check.

“How the fuck do you think I would know!”

 “Well it’s your cousin that is currently bossing everyone around.”

“You are her friend too. You have spent just as much time with them as I have!” Regulus spat back. It was unfair of Snape to immediately to take the victim’s place when Regulus was just as baffled as the he was; and honestly, Regulus had a feeling that Snape was more respected by Bellatrix than Regulus himself was. Snape was uncouth and strange, but he was intelligent and had a streak of violence in him that fascinated people. People who weren’t afraid of it, like Regulus frequently was.

Snape abandoned his enquiry towards Regulus and turned back to Evans, muttering enervate quietly over and over again, but without a wand there was no effect. Regulus turned back to his brother, looking at his still face and trying to think of something to do. He still didn’t have a wand, either the other Slytherins had forgotten to give it back, or they didn’t trust him with it. Regulus had an inkling that he had been just forgotten. He was not a person that usually inspired fear in people, or even wariness.

A hand on his shoulder startled Regulus from his musings. He squeaked and scrambled to turn around, only to meet Alecto’s smiling face.

“Come one, Regsie-Megsie. We are going to have some fun.”

Regulus did not want to have fun, he wanted to be back at the Slytherin dormitories, snuggled under his blankets, safe and asleep. Unfortunately, no one cared what Regulus wanted.

 

Alecto felt great. The warm glow of firewhiskey had already finished its travel through her body, and she was now in the middle of the best part of drunkenness. The part where all of you was light, relaxed, and buzzing with energy at the same time. She couldn’t quite remember why they had never tried anything like this before. Human sacrifice sounded so exciting. Well, probably not for the sacrifices, but you couldn’t please everyone. It was one of the perks of being drunk, it was easy to brush aside such things.

She had a firm grip on the forearm of Regulus, so that he wouldn’t stumble on the ground which was full of all kind of obstacles and even seemed to be swaying slightly. Weird.

“So how are we going to do this?” she asked around and was greeted with unsure silence. In that silence even Regulus’ faint “Do what?” was audible.

“The ritual silly.” Alecto giggled. How did Regulus not know. Oh, yes. They hadn’t told him yet. How silly of them. Regulus was one of them, they should have told him. She would tell Regulus. Right now. Then Regulus wouldn’t be sad anymore.

She took Regulus by a hand and guided him to the stones, her steps stumbling only a little.

“Look! It’s a stone.”

“Yes, I can see that it is a stone. A huge stone.”

“You’re so smart!”

…

…

“Oh yea. I was going to tell you about the thing.”

“thing?”

“It’s not just a thing stupid. It’s a ritual. Old ritual. Old as balls. Druid-old.”

A third person joined them, her brother. Amycus always had to butt in to everything Alecto did. It was unfair. Besides, she was handling the explanation perfectly by herself.

Well, whatever. Let Amycus do it. She was feeling a bit unconcentrated anyway. 

 

“It’s a ritual for victory in war!” Amycus bellowed.

Regulus did not feel any better than when giggly Alecto had been hanging off of him. Well, Alecto still had Regulus’ hands in a vice like grip, and was still hanging off of him, but now Amycus was also looming over him, and the awkwardness had turned much worse. Regulus tried finding the eyes of others, to see if maybe he was involved in an elaborate joke, but Hekta’s cold gaze betrayed nothing, and both Bellatrix and Rodolphus looked eager when the word “ritual” was uttered.  

“We will ensure the victory of our Lord here, tonight, and when our Lord hears what we have done, he will reward us gratuitously!”

“Gratsiosly!” Alecto echoed dreamily, words heavily slurred.

Regulus stared at the both of them in baffled horror. Did they really… So maybe he could see the Carrow siblings coming up with an idea to try to recreate some ancient magical ritual from ages long lost, but Bellatrix was here too. Rodolphus was here too. Merlin, Hekta was here. The idea that they had found some long lost document that just happened to describe druidic magic, was something he would expect to find as a plot for a cheap novel, not something Hekta Lovehart would invest her time in. Bellatrix and Rodolphus might have been just playing around, and the Carrows really were that stupid, but Hekta and Edwin. Really? And if they wanted to play druids, what exactly had they dragged the Gryffindors here for?

 

“The druids Lost you bunch of flobberworm-brains!” Spat the familiarly annoying nasal voice.

Snape had reattached himself from the mudbloods’ side and appeared to do what he did best, which was to insult people bigger and stronger than him.

“That’s the whole point of us using Latin spells! Because the druids were slaughtered and left no records behind! Whatever magic they did to gain victory didn’t go that well now, did it?”

“But we are going to succeed!” Bellatrix purred from behind Snape. She stepped up, and circled her arms around Snape’s shoulders, in the most threatening hug that Regulus had ever witnessed.

“We are going to do what the druids never managed and drive the invaders out of our land. We will take back our glorious heritage and get rid of all the savage mudbloods that trample on all that is good and beautiful in our world. Our lord will lead us to victory and lift us from the muddy present that we now live in. And it will all start here.” Her words were soft and almost sensual. Hungry. Snape shuddered under her whispers.

“Whatever, let’s start killing alreadyyyy!” Alecto whined. Regulus could feel his heart skip a beat as the younger Carrow sibling, after digging through the bag that they had had with them, pulled out a large sickle. It glinted beautifully in the ambient lumos-light of the clearing.

Regulus darted his eyes around in panic, meeting the gaze of Narcissa, who had also gone pale as a sheet.

 

“Bring the mudblood up! I want to try this!” Alecto waived the sickle around.

Snape had gone still as stone, but before he had time to recover, time to protest, Bellatrix vetoed the idea.

“No. Not her. We will kill Sirius first.”

coldness. Silence. Humming in his ears. Regulus couldn’t have had heard right. None of this was real. No really. This was ridiculous. This was a dream. This was-

“Sirius is family!” Shouted Narcissa, striding to stand up to Bellatrix. Snape who was now trapped between two equally terrifying sisters, tried to wiggle out of Bellatrix’s hold, but to no avail.

 

“The traitor is not family! He should have been burned out of the tree years ago! You know the company he keeps. The things he does!”

“Are you mad! He is a Black, even after everything! You cannot think to kill another Black. To became- To become a kinslayer! The Dark Lord would never agree to this!”

“You don’t know anything about the Dark Lord!”

“I- I know that killing your own blood is wrong. Aren’t the Blacks the purest family in Britain? This is beneath us!”

“Aww. You haven’t changed at all from when you were ten.” There was malicious relish in Bellatrix’s voice, which left no doubt that Bellatrix was poking into a peculiar spot in Narcissa’s psyche. Everybody knew that the relationship between the Black sisters was a complex one. You were supposed to ignore the twistedness between them, when you were at polite gatherings. It was how pureblood politics worked. You ignored the twistedness in the background of every conversation.

“You were always stupidly fond of your pets.” Bellatrix whispered over Snape’s head, savouring every syllable.

There was a moment of silence, as Bellatrix and Narcissa stared at each other, and Snape tried to pretend he wasn’t locked between two homicidal Black sisters.

Narcissa pulled up her wand delibaretly slowly, keeping eye contact with Bellatrix the whole time. Calm, serene Narcissa, who everyone agreed was a true embodiment of a proper witch, who never spoke too loudly, nor did anything too rough. Who was as beautiful as she was fragile.

She isn’t going to do it, Regulus found himself thinking. Bellatrix knows that she won’t.

Narcissa blasted Bellatrix straight in the face with an expelliarmus.

Snape fell on his backside with the force that Bellatrix was flown backwards, and Bellatrix herself rolled few times after she landed with the force she had been hit with.

For her efforts, Rodolphus disarmed Narcissa instantly, and even conjured a bunch of magical rope to bind Narcissas hands behind her back. The youngest Black sister still looked satisfied that there was blood squirting away from Bellatrix’s nose in strong bursts when the dark-haired girl got back up again. As she steadied herself against one of the stones, her hand left behind a red handprint on the surface of the ancient stone.

 

None of them noticed the quiet tendrils of mist starting to creep into the clearing.

 

 

Seeing Bellatrix’ bloodied face, Regulus felt fire rushing back to his veins. They would not kill Sirius. They would not kill his brother. They would not.

He looked at Alecto, still holding the sickle in one hand and a wand in another. She looked slightly confused and not entirely aware, drunk off her wits and standing upright mostly with the help of one of the standing stones she was leaning against.

Regulus lunged.

Alecto let out a confused “eep”, as Regulus pushed her down. They both tumbled between the two boulders and into the clearing inside the stone circle.

As Regulus’ hands reached around, the side of the sickle caught his fingers, cutting them up. The red droplets splattered into the ground were swallowed up by the dewy grass beneath them.

Alecto’s motor controls were not currently at their best, and the sickle slipped from her fingers. Regulus wrapped his own aching and bloody hand around the handle and wildly flung the blade down in Alecto’s general direction. What the metal caught, was her face. With a scream and a jerk, she brought both of her hands to cover her bleeding cheek and dropped her wand. Regulus lunged for it, dropping the sickle.

Feeling the unfamiliar wand in his hand, he scrambled back to his feet and tried to make his feet work properly. Regulus had never attacked anyone, had never partaken in anything violent and hearing Alecto’s whimpers made him feel ill. He was not cut up for this, but what choice did he have. The world around him had turned strange and violent, with Narcissa attacking Bellatrix and Amycus talking of human sacrifices, and Bellatrix talking of _killing Sirius._

So Regulus wrapped his trembling fingers more tightly around the handle of Alecto’s wand, just hoping against hope that he would wake up in his own bed in the dormitories and realise that this had all been a horrible nightmare.

Regulus was not the only one causing mayhem. Snape had gotten hold of the wand that Narcissa had dropped and had slipped away in the mayhem caused by Regulus and Narcissa, to rouse Evans.

His enervate worked, even with an unfamiliar wand, and Evans’ eyes fluttered open.

Realising that he too had a wand, Regulus started to stumble towards his unconscious brother, seeing from the corner of his eye Rodolphus notice what was going on and aim his wand at Snape’s back.

“I don’t think so mudblood!” Rodolphus hissed in anger, and the magical ropes appeared again. These however snaked around Severus’ neck, slowly cutting of his air and making him gurgle in pain, as Rodolphus dragged him across the grass inside the stone circle.

“We’re not picky. We’ll kill all of you disgusting mudbloods, and half-bloods and bloodtraitors!” Rodolphus shouted, his self-control slipping away just as the situation was slipping away from everyone’s control.

Still tumbling towards Sirius, Regulus felt his breath coming in shorter and shallower, the choking gurgles of Snape making it hard for him to breath too. Snape was his friend, wasn’t that what he had thought only moments ago. He was annoying but…But hadn’t the others liked him? Amycus had. As had Lucius. And Bellatrix. He was a fellow Slytherin, surely there couldn’t be violence against their own-

Someone wailed behind him and forced him from his thoughts.

Regulus’ would not havestill been standing, if it hadn’t been for Narcissa, who might not have had her hands but was still capable of kicking Hekta in the back when she aimed her wand to knock out Regulus. Hekta fell to her knees with a shout of surprised pain, and during the time that she took to turn around, Narcissa had already slipped behind a stone to shield herself from the oncoming curse. Her reflexes were still sharp, not hindered by alcohol or general confusion that had overtaken everyone else.

Regulus dropped to the ground, hoping that he wouldn’t look like a target, wriggling in the grass, and started to make his way, inch by slow inch towards Sirius. Getting Sirius conscious was right now the only thing he could think of, a childlike part of his brain convinced that everything would turn out okay if only Sirius was awake and well.

 

 

Narcissa could feel sweat running down her neck, even in the cold brisk night-air. All around her was confused mayhem, and she had rubbed her wrists raw trying to escape the ropes that Rodolphus had spelled her hands in.  

Besides everything happening around her, there was also something at the edges of her senses that bothered Narcissa. Something that penetrated her concentration, even in the situation they were in.

A sound of drums.

There were faint sounds surrounding them, sounds coming from the woods. Sounds that she would have given anything to be a search party from Hogwarts, but that she knew weren’t.

There was also mist gathering around them. Thick white mist, that seemed to come from nowhere, and wrap around their ankles unnaturally quickly.

The sounds kept growing stronger, starting to become more and more audible over the choking gasps of Snape, the loud cussing of Rodolphus, gleeful shrieks of Bellatrix and general whimpering, gasping and shouting.

There were drums, there were horns. There were sound of trampling, like a great gathering of feet, hoofs, and paws were wrecking through the forest. There was sounds of howling, and sometimes it sounded like animal howls, and sometimes it sounded like humans were howling, and the sounds blended together into one inhuman, unnatural concert of howls circling them from every direction.

Narcissa wasn’t the only one who stilled. “What the hell…” whispered Rodolphus, his concentration loosening slightly letting Snape gasp in air and pull against the ropes around his neck with new vigour.  

Everything had gone silent.

 _Everything had gone silent_. As the people in the clearing had all frozen, so had the voices also disappeared. Now there was only the whispering of the wind around them.

 

The frozen moment was broken by Evans, apparently no longer unconscious like thought, who like a true Gryffindor, charged senselessly to defend her friend.

“Eat shit fucker!!” She screamed as she jumped Rodolphus and bit into the side of his face. Her arms and legs had wrapped around the older boy, her teeth firmly clamped around his ear. Rodolphus howled in both pain and anger.

More blood was spilled into the ground and sprayed onto the surfaces of the stones circling them.

Snape was finally released from the choke-hold completely and gulped down some much needed air while at the same time scrambling to standing position.

Rodolphus who finally managed in shaking the crazed Gryffindor girl off of him, regretted the action immediately, as Evan’s jaws did not unlock around his ear, but took the ear off with her, as she was thrown into the ground. Her entire face was covered in blood, and she kept coughing blood from her mouth, spittle flowing onto her chin.

 

Nobody, but Lily herself, could know this right now, but she had in her tumbling swallowed the ear. 

 

Bellatrix was prevented from cursing the mudblood into a greasy stain, because she was suddenly mauled by a huge black dog, followed by a stag punching its hooves into Hekta’s stomach. Behind one of the stones, Narcissa could see Regulus staring at the spectacle, looking very small, young and lost.

It was all very fast, confusing, and surreal, and with the mayhem the drums returned.

 

Narcissa felt like a spectator who was somehow very far away from everything that was going on, standing back pressed against an ancient stone, hands still bound behind her back, face wet with sweat and hair tousled. In front of her eyes the stone circle had transformed into a battleground. At her feet thick white mist had gathered to cover the ground, and in the air the sound of drumming became faster, the sound of howls nearer and the host of trampling feet grew greater.

 

She watched as Alecto curled whimpering against a stone, holding her face in her hands. She watched as Edwin tried to raise his wand hand and was mauled by the black dog. She watched as Snape grabbed Lily by the hand and dragged her to run away with him. Snape looked like an animal that could only listen to its instincts as he fled. Evans looked more hesitant in her steps, but still held on and followed Snape, both of them disappearing into the darkness between the trees.

She watched as Lupin got hexed with something ugly that burned his side until he was wheezing in agony and clutching his stomach by Bellatrix. Edwin tried to stand up, but his feet had been mangled by the fangs of the angry dog too badly.

She saw Regulus, hit by one of the hexes meant for the beasts, landing near Narcissa’s feet.

 

Seeing his cousin woke Narcissa from her daze, and she quickly kneeled next to him.

“Come. Behind the stone”, she hissed, and Regulus followed, as she manoeuvred her young relative behind the boulder, awkwardly without the use of her hands, where they would both be safe from wayward hexes.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the stag bouncing into the forest, being ridden by bleeding Remus Lupin, who was holding onto the stag’s neck for dear life. Both were followed by the great black dog and something small scurrying in the grass by their feet. Then the forest swallowed them too.

The drumming stopped. All the voices stopped, expect Bellatrix screeching in frustration and anger, Amycus cursing, and others still whimpering in pain.

She couldn’t say what it was that made her so sure that something in the taste of the air had irreversibly changed, but it had. Even before looking up, Narcissa knew that something fundamental had changed.

Then Narcissa looked up, and kept on staring.

 

“After them! Find them! Kill them! Kill all of them! Find them! Kill them!” Bellatrix kept on screeching, her voice high enough to hurt ears.

Amycus was already stumbling forwards, ready to start the hunt, but Narcissa stood up and stepped in front of him.

“We really shouldn’t start wandering around.” She stated calmly.

“What the fuck Black! you think-“

“We really shouldn’t leave. Look up.”

“this is all your fault!” Hissed Bellatrix, and her crazed voice would have made Narcissa afraid in any other situation.

“Look up Bellatrix.” She said, gesturing upwards with her head, at the sky, not afraid. She had gone beyond fear by now.

They all looked up at the sky.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -If you are like me, and really enjoy reading about the history of human sacrifice, I do have some links for you. 
> 
> https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/druids-sacrifice-cannibalism/
> 
> https://www.digitalmedievalist.com/opinionated-celtic-faqs/human-sacrifice/
> 
> -As always, please leave a review here, or come say your opinion on https://myyttiseenloveenlangennut.tumblr.com/


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ''I'm not the Queen of Heaven, Thomas,
> 
> That name does not belong to me;
> 
> I am but the Queen of fair Elphame
> 
> Come out to hunt in my follie.''
> 
> Thomas the Rymer, ballad 37, by Robert Grave

 

 

 

Remus stared at the perfect disc of the full moon.

It was beautiful.

There were very faint memories from his childhood of gazing at the full moon with his mother in their garden, but those memories were hazy and painful to remember, dreamlike and most probably false in their construction at this point.

Seeing the silvery orb, with its darkened shapes on the surface and the faint glow painting the world silvery, Remus was truly witnessing the beauty of full moon for the first time.

 

It wasn’t real of course. Remus was aware of this through the confusion of his mind and the throbbing pain pulsing through his body. This wasn’t a hard deduction to make, seeing that there were three moons on the sky. There was a full moon in the middle and either side of it a waxing and a waning moon shone, defying any sense or logic that one would expect when looking at the heavenly bodies in the night sky.

Aside from the triple-moons, the stars were even less realistic. To start with, they did not stay still. They moved around, like living things. The constellations played with each other, the ursa major, nuzzling the ursa minor between her paws. The Gemini twins walking around with the Virgo. The Leo prowling the sky proudly, tilting its head and seeming to look down at Remus; its eyes, two stars burning brighter than any stars were supposed to shine, several smaller stars forming its body.  All the familiar constellations were there, and countless unfamiliar ones were also there, all going about like living things.

 

It was almost worth it getting cursed and having your brain scrambled just for this view.

 

“…us?! ….Mus? …Remus?”

 

The voice was insistent in its quest to disturb Remus from his beautiful dream.

 

“Oh Merlin, what if he dies! James what if he dies!! What was that curse that hit him?! What was it!? We have to do something-!”

“Sirius calm down.”

“Calm down! Calm down! Remus could be dying-!“

 

“I’mma not dying….”

 

“Remus!”

 

The scared face of Sirius blocked Remus’ view of the sky. He didn’t mind terribly, looking at Sirius was never a hardship, and if his friend hadn’t looked so wretched, he would have gladly settled into staring at the dark pools that were his friend’s eyes.

 

“I’m okay.”

 

“That’s a lie.” Sirius scoffed, but there was a small smile dancing around his mouth, so Remus felt that he had succeeded. The worst of the panicked edge melted from around his eyes and Remus started to belatedly realise that some things were not adding up.

 

The dream-like sky was still there, even if his friends were now all in his sights, James and Peter appearing on either side of Sirius, helping Remus carefully to sit up.

They all looked very real, dirty, wrecked, scared, but real. The surroundings around him also looked very real, the forest as solid and realistic as Forbidden Forest in Hogwarts had ever been. It was only the sky that confused matters.

“What happened?”

 

“We-“ James started to speak. He was fiddling with his glasses, trying to wipe them on the sleeve of his robe. “That bitch Bellatrix hit you with something, some kind of curse.”

 

Yes, Remus could testify to that. His side was still pulsing with pain, even if it was lessening to a dull throb that you could deal with, from the all-encompassing agony it had been before.

 

“And you were pretty out of it when we escaped from those murderous death eater wannabees. You rode on my back.”

 

Remus could hazily recall amidst the hazy memories of pain.

 

“but when Sirius and Peter helped you down, you were full on delirious.”

 

“Oh. Sorry.”

Sirius barked out a disbelieving laugh. “Only you Remus. Only you.”

 

“So, do you…how does the sky look to you?”

 

“Oh…You’re not hallucinating.” James glanced at the sky and then quickly averted his eyes back down. “I don’t know what’s going on with that, but to take a wild guess, we are not in the Forbidden Forest anymore.”

 

“What happened to the others?”

 

“…I don’t know.”

 

The four boys sat in the dark forest in silence for a moment. As much as James had a habit for clamouring after adventures, Remus doubted that his was what he had had in mind.

“Evans was there too. With Snape. I saw them run into the woods together when everything was going crazy.” Peter mumbled.

“Regulus was there too.” Sirius admitted quietly. It was funny to think how only this morning Sirius had been boiling with anger towards his brother. It almost felt like the morning had been decades ago.

 

“We should find the others. We should be together, make sure that the others are safe, so when the search and rescue party comes, they can find us all together.”

 

“you think we’re going to be saved by a search and rescue party?” Sirius looked at James, with that glint he sometimes got in his eyes when he thought that James was being pampered and naïve.

 

“Well, they would have noticed that we are not where we are supposed to be by now. Dumbledore won’t let us just disappear!”

 

“You really think that they are going to find us here?” Sirius pointedly looked at the sky.

 

“Well-“ And then James’ optimism died in his mouth and he did not complete the sentence.

 

“Well, I still think that we should find the others.”

 

“it’s not a bad idea.” Peter piped in.

 

“Fine. You are right. We should find the others. I’ll sniff around a bit, see if I can pick up any familiar scents.” Sirius shrugged and turned into a dog.

 

 

 

 

Severus had been staring at the psychedelic sky for hours now (or at least what felt like hours) and still his brain couldn’t wrap around it.

“I cannot believe that we left them behind.” Lily whimpered again. She was curled into a ball, her face covered in blood and tears, sitting against the thick trunk of a spruce, hands wrapped around her knees, slowly rocking back and forth. “They could be hurt. They could all be dead.”

 

Sitting next to her, Severus didn’t answer, as he hadn’t answered earlier. He just sat there, eyes occasionally resting in the darkness between the trees and sometimes lifted to gaze at the sky. He was not sorry for leaving anyone behind, but he was sorry about the entire state of their being, in general. Lily was hurt, they were lost in the woods, the sky had turned strange, they had been kidnapped by their own classmates, almost killed, and there was still a possibility that that they were going be hunted down by half-mad Bellatrix Black.

 

Severus had learned early in life that the best way to protect yourself was to blend into the shadows, quiet, unseen, forgotten. Everything in him was screaming to stay still, until he was forgotten and could creep slowly back to his bed, curl in there and swallow his fears away.

 

But Lily was different. She had always been reckless, seemingly immune to caution and common sense, and she was getting anxious.

“We should move.” Lily said, getting up and stumbling a little, her body trembling slightly. Severus knew his friend, she was not trembling because of fear, she was trembling with a manic need to DO something. They were her moods like these that Severus feared, when something burned in her veins louder than whatever Severus tried to get her to understand.

 

“To where!?” Severus hissed, snapping his face towards hers, and also stumbling up. “That’s madness! We don’t have wands, we are completely helpless!”

“We can’t just stay here forever.”

“It’s still dark, we have to wait at least until morning-“

“What if there is no morning! Have you seen the sky-?”

“There has to be a morning.”

“And what if there isn’t.”

 

They stared at each other in the dark, only just visible to each other in the pale moonlight. The worst part was that Lily might be right. There might not be morning, Bellatrix might not forget and let them go, there might not even be a way home anymore.

 

Something rustled in the dark.

 

Both Lily and Severus by reflex turned around, closing ranks by pressing their sides together. Their hands found each other and gripped tight, both hoping desperately for a wand.

 

Their backs pressed tight against the trunk of a tree, Severus was comforted by how quickly Lily had still reached for his hand. They had been drifting away from each other, but she was still there. Solid, real, an assuring presence besides him. A reminder that there was still good in the world.

 

There was a glimpse of something canine moving in the undergrowth between the trees, a big black shadow getting closer. Lily had seen the same things, as there was a moment where they both tried to push each other behind themselves for protection. It just ended up as an awkward shuffle, where neither of them won.

 

What finally appeared into their field of vision was not a beast, but as far as Severus was concerned a wild beast might have been preferable.

 

From the dark stepped up Sirius Black.

 

Lily screamed, a scream of startled surprise.  Severus now wished more than ever that he had had a wand.

Black sagged in relief, seeing the two.  

 

“Thank Merlin, You’re alive.” While nothing exactly in his tone suggested that the “you” in question wasn’t plural, Severus got the impression that the “you” in question was mostly aimed towards Lily. Severus at least was not feeling any gratitude towards any higher power at the knowledge that Black had survived unscratched from the whole mess.

 

“James has been going nuts, thinking that you are lying dead in a ditch somewhere this Merlin-damned forest.”

 

So, Potter too was alive and well enough to worry about Lily. Severus felt his mood plummeting even further down, which was an achievement.

 

“Now c’mon. The others aren’t far off.” The handsome Black heir made a quick gesture with his hand for them to follow.

 

 “You want us to go with you? Are you mad?” Severus sneered, but his sneer did not reach its usual heights of contempt. There was too much fear hidden behind it. This was not the time and place where he wanted to be anywhere near the Marauders and their cruel sense of humour.

 

“Well we certainly don’t want _you_ anywhere near us. But Evans is a good person and probably won’t leave you behind…. Like she should,” was added quietly, but not quietly enough that Severus couldn’t hear it.

 

Lily squeezed Severus’ hand a bit harder, which comforted him more than he would ever admit.

 

“Sirius Black, you are vile.”

 

“Relax doll. I was joking. But Prongs does think that we should stick together seeing the….” Black glanced up where the stars moved around, “…situation.”

 

“I hate to say this…” Lily whispered, bending her face closer to Severus’ own. Severus wanted to argue back, but could find nothing to say. He hated Black and he hated the Marauders and he hated the situation they were in and he hated his fellow Slytherins who had dragged him into this situation, (who had looked at him like he was nothing more than a thing to be killed and disposed, and oh how easily he had been dropped from their estimation of someone worthy of existence. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he had been.) but still he could see the benefits.

 

The marauders probably wouldn’t try to kill him. (probably.)

 

Lily and Severus did not need words to communicate, not even in this darkness. Lily’s eyes crinkled, and her lips twitched helplessly. Severus’ eyes widened and narrowed, and his lips also twitched downwards.

This was an entire debate between the two had with facial expressions, which ended with both of their resignation.

 

“you are right, Black.” Lily groaned. “Lead the way I guess.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter’s whiskers twitched as he scurried across the forest floor, jumping over a root, dashing underneath a bush. Usually he found his rat-form very comforting, giving him the change to roam the halls of Hogwarts without risk of being caught.

But here, where his ears picked on the distant rustles of predators, being small was not an advantage.

Still he continued on with his mission, knowing that James and Sirius counted on him.

It was nice, to know that James and Sirius were counting on him, but he would have enjoyed it more with less high-stakes mission.

Still, Peter was a Gryffindor, as he kept reminding himself, so he would not let a little danger stop him.

 

Somewhere deep in the forest, his sensitive ears picked up the sounds of distant drums and tramping hooves.

He was definitely not going to think about those, not if he wanted to keep his nerve.

 

Using his nose to pick out their own scent, Peter navigated his way back to where they had came from. They had, reluctantly all agreed that trying to find their way back to the stone circle was the best shot they had at getting home, even with the threat of Bellatrix and her entourage.

 

Peter had been sent to scout ahead, to see how safe it would be.

 

The faint scent of blood and unfamiliar humans was the first sign that he had reached his destination. The stones were not exactly visible to a rat’s eye in a way that Peter remembered them, but he could smell the fight that had happened, and hear the voices carrying through the air, as he slowly and carefully slipped closer, still hidden by the vegetation.

 

“-And this is all your fault Cissy!”

“My fault?! My fault that you and your friends decided to do something as monumentally stupid as this?!”

“You helped the mudbloods get away!”

 

Bellatrix and Narcissa were easy to hear, their voices carrying in the otherwise silent woods.

 

“You are mad.”

 

“Mad?! Mad?! Just because you are afraid of dark arts-“

“I’m not afraid of dark arts.”

“-of anything that might make you powerful, does not mean that the rest of us are.”

 

“Powerful? Have you seen the sky? Do you even know what has happened? To us? To the world?”

“The ritual needs a sacrifice, it’s all gone wrong because you helped the mudbloods escape. If we had done the sacrifice properly-“

 

“Listen to yourself. You really believe everything that comes out of your mouth.”

 

“We need to find them. We need to find the mudbloods and the bloodtraitors.”

 

“Bella, we need to find a way back home!”

 

“Careful, Cissy. If we don’t find the mudbloods, we might have to find someone else to sacrifice.”

 

Silence fell to the area, in which it was easy to hear the pained grunts coming from the other compatriots of Bellatrix. There was at least a little bit of satisfaction in the knowledge that they had managed to mess up their kidnappers quite thoroughly.

Peter ran quickly even closer, to the base of one of the stones.

 

“That fucking bitch…I’ll kill her…I’ll fucking kill her.” Rodolphus was muttering to himself, the stench of blood reeking off of him in waves.

 

Even worse off was the unfamiliar Slytherin boy, who Sirius had attacked. He was sitting against the stone next to the one Peter was hiding by, right leg and left hand covered in red, the skin torn to ribbons on his arm. Near him stood the Ravenclaw girl, perfectly silent and still. A trickle of blood was travelling down her face from a gash on her cheek, but otherwise she seemed to be fine.

 

“We need to go. We need to find them.” Declared Bellatrix. The female Carrow sibling whimpered and threw up on the ground. Her cheerful alcohol intake during their walk here had seemingly caught up with her.

 

A distant sound like a horn being blown in the distance travelled through the air.

 

“I don’t think we should go there.” Narcissa muttered.

 

“I don’t care what you think. You are all coming with me.”

 

“Edwin can’t walk.” The Ravenclaw girl interrupted. Her voice still emotionless.

“Neither can Regulus. I don’t know what he was hit with, but he’s too spaced out to go anywhere.”

 

Peering further from the long grass, Peter could see that Narcissa was kneeling on the ground, slightly holding a swaying Regulus by the shoulders. Sirius’ brother was sitting down, but still had trouble staying upright.

 

“We leave them here.”

 

“We can’t just leave Regulus and Edwin! Do you see the shape they are in? We have to stick together. At least wait till the morning.”

 

Bellatrix was not swayed. “If we wait, the mudbloods will be long gone. I want to find them now! Before they find a way to crawl back to Dumbledore. We go!”

 

Bellatrix turned around and snapped her fingers, the Carrow siblings appearing loyally at her side, even if the sister looked ready to puke again, and Rodolphus following her, still cursing and clutching the side of his head.

 

The four strode off, disappearing into the shadows, leaving behind Narcissa, Regulus, Edwin and the Ravenclaw girl standing over him.

 

Peter bounced away, hurrying as fast as his small legs could carry him. He had to warn his friends!

 

While running, he caught a glimpse of something moving in the forest. Something big, and vaguely human shaped, with two eyes flaming like fires, and horns growing from its head. It looked into the direction of the stones but turned around without getting closer. It was gone in few long strides and Peter could once again hear the sounds of trampling feet, drums, barks, and hollers, but this time retreating and growing fainter, until everything was silent again.

 

When he caught the strong scents of his friends again, he quickly transformed back to a boy. The marauders had no intentions of letting out the fact that they were unregistered animagi to Snape. The Slytherin would report them to the ministry faster than one could blink, if he found out.

 

Being a human again felt clumsy, big, and noisy. It was strange how quickly one got used to the other shape.

 

James practically jumped at him, when he reached the group of huddled students. Sirius looked like he wanted to do the same, but could not tear himself from Remus, who was now at least sitting up by himself. Evans was looking at him worriedly, while still glued to Snape’s side.

 

“How did it go?”

 

Peter basked in the feeling of being the one James was relying on, and then quickly recapped what he had heard and seen.

 

“Fuck.” Sirius swore. “But if they are searching the woods, then they aren’t at the stones.”

“But they will return there when they won’t find us.” Evans interjected. She still had dried blood around her mouth.

 

“We just have to find our way back to Hogwarts before that then.” James answered and flashed Evans a smile that was much too optimistic for their circumstances.

 

“It’s not going to be that easy.” Snape spat with vehemence. In other circumstances Peter would have been sure that Snape just wanted to be contrary to James, but these were not other circumstances.

 

“What other choice do we have.” Remus argued back, his voice still slightly pained as he held his side at the same time. “Haven’t you all heard the wolf howls? The drums? At least we know what kind of threat Bellatrix and her posse are. We don’t know what might happen to us here.” He looked up at the triple moons nervously.  

 

One perfectly timed howl of a wolf followed his speech.

 

They all got up and started walking.

 

 

Returning for the stones turned out to be a mistake. They all realised it the second they glimpsed the clearance through the trees, but it was already too late. While Bellatrix and her friends were nowhere to be seen, they might have been preferable to what was surrounding the stone circle.

They were not humans, that was easy to see on the first glance. But what they were was not so easy to figure out.

 

Some of them were riding deer, wolves, wild boars, and what looked like the leader of the group, was astride some big cat with two long sabre-teeth curving out of its mouth.

 

If the fauna they were riding seemed strange, the riders themselves were even more so. They were all wearing strange leathery armour, but that is where their similarities ended. Some of them were tall and spindly and winged, some round, small, and sturdy. Some looked like Goblins and some like house-elves, and some looked like small walking trees.

 

They all looked very hostile, holding long spears, and blades on their persons.

 

Before anyone had time to do more than say “what the fuck-“ one of the creatures riding a doe turned its head towards them, and it was clear that its pitch black eyes saw the humans clearly in the darkness.

 

The doe leaped its way to them in a blink of an eye, and from shadows more creatures approached, cutting off any hope of escape. These ones were on foot, but equally armed with nasty looking weapons.

 

The creatures were talking to each other in a language that did not sound even passingly familiar, but the intent was made clear; with the spears guiding the group of humans towards. and finally inside the stone circle, where those left behind by Bellatrix were already faring very badly.

 

 

“Don’t you dare to touch me, creatures! I am a witch from the old Lovehart family and-“

“Hekta! Don’t antagonise them! You will get us all killed!”

“Hey! Don’t touch her! Don’t you dare touch her!”

“Stay down Edwin. You are nothing but a liability.”

 

It was all a confusing mess of black robes and pushing bodies. Peter’s leg got tangled with someone else’s, and he fell to the grass. From his vantage point on the ground, he saw the Ravenclaw girl trying to intimidate one of the creatures pointing its spear at them. The mauled slytherin boy had struggled to his feet and was staggering towards her.

 

“Leave us alone, and I will not have to use this.” The girl said, pointing her wands towards the creature.

The creature responded by thrusting its spear forwards lightning fast, but not fast enough.

“Hekta, no!”

The slytherin boy had thrown himself at Hekta, the spear hitting his side and coming through his stomach.

 

A terrible stench of blood hit the air.

 

All the students went still, staring horrified at the scene.

 

“I love you.” The boy said, and he sounded very confused, almost surprised. Then the spear was yanked back, and the boy fell on his hands and knees to the ground, making a horrifying gurgling sound. The creature finished the job efficiently by stabbing the spear through the boy’s neck.

 

The Ravenclaw girl, who had all the way through here been perfectly calm, who had hexed this same boy’s neck without a blink in order to disarm Peter, who had had nothing but ice behind her eyes this whole time, screamed. As the first scream died out, she Raised her wand and screamed avada kedavra, pointing her wand straight at the creature that had killed the slytherin boy.

 

Nothing happened. There was no green light. No one dropped dead.

 

“What…How- This isn’t possible-“ Hekta stammered, Then pointed the wand again, yelling avada kedavra again, followed by crucio, Confringo, Expelliarmus! All yielding the same result, nothing.

shaking her wand like a child, confused that it was suddenly nothing more than a wooden stick in her hands, Hekta shook her head desperately, a stream of panicked:  “No. No-no-no-no- ! Edwin. No.” stumbling from her mouth.

 

The wand finally dropping from her hands, she looked at the dead body in front of her and launched herself over it, opting to try and physically fight the creatures surrounding them.

 

Peter turned his head away, curling into fetal position, whimpering to himself and trying to not hear how quickly Hekta’s enraged wail turned into a death-rattle.

 

Someone was pulling him up, and it turned out to be Evans of all people. Green eyes almost overtaken by black and mouth pinched so hard that it had become near invisible line.

 

The blue-scaled creature with big see-through wings riding the big, sabre-toothed cat rode closer. “This one is Captain Neit. Humans follow. Neit take humans to Queen.”

 

 

The humans glanced at each other, then at two bodies lying still on the ground, and then had no other option but to follow.

 

 

 

 

 

They were led along small forest paths, almost invisible at places to the human eye. They walked until their legs ached and then they walked some more. Finally, they reached a stone cliffside, where a small opening led into a claustrophobic tunnel. Through the tunnel, they arrived in a valley, overlooked by a great castle carved into the mountain on the other side. Between them and the castle opened a great green space, like someone had taken an entire valley and turned it into a garden.

 

They were still led through an apple-orchard where different creatures flitted amongst the trees, all pointing at the humans and whispering amongst themselves. Some of them looked like Goblins, some like house-elves, and some were completely unrecognisable. Some like trolls but smaller. Some like pixies but bigger. And some kept changing shape as you looked at them, making the whole mess even more confusing.

All whispering and tittering in an unrecognisable language to each other.

 

Somewhere between the trees, lanterns were strung up, somewhere colourful floating flames flew between the trees. Some places in the empty spaces between the trees, were tables laden with all kind of delicious looking food. There and there one could glimpse a groups of locals in the midst of some kind of game, or dance, or some other merriment which was immediately abandoned in favour of gawking and gossiping when the prisoners walked past.

 

It all looked a bit like a massive garden party to James, who had been dragged to a quite a few as a child.

 

Their silent gathering was guided through the twisting paths to what James assumed might have been the centre of the garden, where her majesty herself lounged on her throne.

 

The Queen was beautiful. There was no way around it. But she was beautiful in a way that made you want to keep your distance, because you could see the terrible details too. The eeriness of her beauty. The way in which every feature of her face, perfect by themselves, did not quite come together to form a natural looking human face. How her bright green eyes were a tad too big and her long dark hair was not formed of individual strands. Her waist was a bit too narrow and her legs a bit too long. The green dress not folding around her body in a natural way.

 

It was almost impossible to look at anything but her, the uncanny vision keeping its hold.

 

She had silvery crown on her head, with sharp spikes raising well above her head. Flowers and berries were woven to the metallic frame of the crown, softening the otherwise undecorated and dangerous-looking apparatus into something prettier.

 

“Her highness the Queen of the Fairies and all of Elphame. The protector of the Faerie realm, the Great Gloriana, the Strong Titania, the-“

 

“Thank you, Ariel.” The Queen interrupted the insect-like creature standing next to her, with long spindly limbs and huge dragonfly-wings, who had appeared to be gearing up for a long speech.

 

“Ah. Humans. It has been a while since we had your kind here.” The queen continued, putting down her goblet and straightening from her lounge on the wooden throne.

 

The throne itself was formed from twisted roots of several trees that knotted together to form the chair. The trees continued growing normally upwards from the back of the chair, creating a natural canopy with their leaves for the one sitting on it.

 

The Queen turned to one of the armed guards that had been escorting James and the others, asking questions in the tilting language that the other whispering creatures had also used amongst themselves. The guard answered in the same language and the conversation was quickly over, the queen seemingly satisfied with whatever she had been told.

 

The dirty and shaken humans stood in the soft glow of the fairy-lights in the gentle night of the fairy-court, speechless, numb and dumb. The queen eyed the assortment before her with a sharp eye and a small secretive smile. The silence stretched, aside from the susurrus of whispers surrounding the scene.

 

“This is the part where you kneel.” The queen said smirking wider.

 

There was a collective shuffle amongst the children, where everyone contemplated bending their knees, glanced discretely around, saw that no one else was doing it, and stayed as they were. James was the only one whose legs stayed perfectly straight the whole time, the thought of kneeling for some uppity fairy-creature never even crossing his mind. He had lived his whole life as the person who other people tried to please. Turning that dynamic around did not come naturally for him.

 

But even James’ unflappable belief in his own invulnerability was starting to crack. The ocean of whispers grew louder as the humans stood still, and James realised belatedly that maybe he should have obeyed. That the woman staring at them unblinkingly might do something terrible to them.

 

“You are not making a very good show of yourself, little mortals. Back when my queendom was still open for your kind, visitors knew the proper ways to show respect.”

 

“Your soldiers killed Edwin and Hekta.” It was funny how easy it was to dismiss how Edwin and Hekta had postured like real dark wizards, fully intending to commit murder, now that they were dead. How easy it was to only think of them as fellow students.

 

“And they let you live. You should rejoice.”

 

James hated this. He hated how everything the queen said sounded like she was making some private joke that James was not privy to, how helpless he truly was standing in this beautiful garden, surrounded by strange creatures.

 

“What do you want from us?”  

 

“Kneel.” The queen drawled again. Getting more comfortable on her throne.

 

James was not going to do it. He would never kneel to anyone. But around him, the others were dropping down. The slytherins of course went first, and James almost scoffed. That was not a surprise. But Evans, Peter and Remus had followed very soon after. Even Sirius obeyed, and James tried to not feel betrayed by his friends.

 

An insistent tug on his robes courtesy of Remus dragged James down too.

 

“Cute.” Was the verdict from the queen. “You will of course have to learn much better manners when you serve me as my personal servants.”

 

James would have shot up, if it wasn’t for the very tight grip that Remus had on his arm, the werewolf using all of his lycanthropic strength to hold James’ hand against the grass.

 

“What are the faces I see you making at me. My dear humans, surely you must realise that I wouldn’t guide you back into the mortal-world without a price. Seven years _is_ quite traditional.”

 

There was horrified silence.

 

“Well, well, well. What do they teach you mortals these days? Surely you weren’t foolish enough to start a ritual summoning the Wild Hunt without thinking of the consequences. My realm is closed. None will be allowed to leave without my blessing.”

 

“You cannot- This is some kind of a trick. You are nothing but tricks and illusions!” James shouted, a real fear squeezing around his stomach.

 

Oh, you foolish little mortal, illusions and lies are always necessary for happiness. You don’t really think that you could bear facing your true self? Of your friends seeing the real you? Of you seeing your friends without lies?”

“What does that even-?”

The fairy queen snapped her long fingers, her smirk full of needle-sharp teeth being the last visible thing before all went-

 

It was like being sucked inside yourself. It felt a bit like apparition, with the yank on your navel, but instead of moving somewhere, you were sucked inside. It felt like being compressed into one small particle and then stretched wide, expanded, until you didn’t even exist. Suddenly you were we and we-

 

 

 

_Walking through a softly illuminated hallway, with familiar carpet brushing your bare feet. Mother in the living room, kneeling in front of the fireplace, her long black braid almost touching the floor._

_“There’s my baby boy! Come here darling.”_

_You walk there, your mother’s familiar lined face looking eerie and strange in the glow of the fire-place._

_“There. Take it. It is the moonstone.”_

_Inside the fireplace, surrounded by the flames, sits a glittering jewel, a diamond the size of your fist._

_“Take it. And you never have to grow up.” Your mother’s voice is by your ear now, she is hugging you from behind, but the familiar gesture is too strong, it is slowly suffocating you, stealing your breath away._

_“Take the stone.”_

_“it’s not real.”_

_The arms tighten around you painfully and somewhere behind you there are people standing, watching you, and uncle Eustace is one of them, but you cannot turn around, you cannot make a sound-_

_-and you are in a small garden, with mother’s arms around you as she whispers a story into your ear. The full-moon is staring down at you two, like great all-seeing eye. Mother was telling the story of the moon-goddess watching over her lover who was cursed with eternal sleep._

_“Is the moon watching us too?”_

_“Yes dearheart. The moon is always here to watch over us and to listen to us.”_

_And you want to turn around and embrace your mother and ask her if she will also be forever there for you, but when you turn, your mother, with her short brown hair almost silvery in the moonlight, is wrapped up in moonbeams, which are slowly lifting her further and further away from your grasp._

_“For fuck’s sake! For once, I would like to think that I have a son whose future to plan, instead of a werewolf to contain!!” Her face is twisted and terrible as she is yanked up and disappears._

_-There is a door in front of you and it is bright red, bleeding at the edges, you scream, and you kick, and you bite, and you trash, but the magic keeps hold and the red door is opened. You are thrown through it, your mother and your father and your brother standing still and quiet as the door slams shut, into a room where the walls are bleeding and the air is thick with echoing screams. You scratch the red door, scratching the old grooves in the wood until your fingers are bleeding as red as everything else-_

_“You will never get out.” Says your mother from the other side of the door._

_-and you are slowly walking inside the room with faded red wallpaper, your legs take you to an antique wooden chest that has stood in the corner of the room always, you walk closer and you wish you could stop, Kreacher is there, walking besides you and telling you to stop, but you can’t. You stand in front of the chest, the key is in the lock and you twist it, wishing you didn’t, but you have already done this-_

_And you turn around, run to your father, who reaches down and takes your mouth away from you,_

_and you notice that you can’t make a sound anymore, that you sit there with your family, crying, but no sound comes out-_

_-Father is sleeping on his bed, his shoes are still on his feet and you reach for him, hoping to wake him up, you want to give him his birthday-gift, but mother grabs your hand, prevents you from getting closer, and you see as your father dissolves into small white pills that slowly sink through the mattress and leave nothing behind._

_“Better to reign in hell than to die in suburbia.” Your mother says behind you-_

_-you are kneeling by the edge of the vast manor garden, digging through the dirt with your bare hands, your fingernails cracking, and bleeding and your sister doesn’t stop laughing behind you. You killed Artemis! You killed Artemis! She squeals in delight. You dig faster, tears streaming down your face, but the earth doesn’t give, no matter how frantically you dig the hole doesn’t get any deeper._

_“Why can’t you just behave.” Your mother asks tired and disappointed behind you, while ignoring the shrieking laughter of your sister._

_-Your sister points at you, looking at you like you are a hostile stranger. “You don’t belong here!”_

_“We don’t need you.” your father says._

_“We don’t want you.” your mother says._

_You run out the door, tears blurring your vision, as the familiar shape of your best friend finally materialises in front of you, and you launch towards him, reaching for warmth, for comfort-_

_“Don’t touch me you filthy mudblood!” he yells, and you are swallowed by darkness, lonely, all-encompassing darkness-_

_-“And I will tell you the secret of all dark magic.” Your mother says, smiling mysteriously, and you are so happy because mother almost never smiles, and she playfully taps at your nose, eyes almost mischievous. That is when you see the blood streaming down her face and matting her hair._

_“Mom! Mom! Just wait I will get help, Mom!” You scream, but it is no help, the blood keeps pouring down, and from the ground vines rise up to envelop your mother who is still smiling, even when she is being swallowed by the forest-“_

s/he woke up to a confused feeling of displacement. Like s/he had been crammed into a container too small, too stifling. Then the feeling settled, the bones and the flesh starting to feel less like a prison and more like a home. This body, their body, no HIS body. Worn and familiar.

He slowly extended his limbs, chasing away the tingling of cramped muscles. Opening his eyes, he was greeted with darkness that was barely more stimulating than the black beneath his eye-lids. Black. That was his name. Sirius Black.

Gingerly sitting up, Sirius tried to shake himself from the feeling of uncanniness that the dream had left him with. He wanted to forget it, wanted desperately that this dream would slip away from his mind like dreams so commonly did.

The dream stayed, stubbornly etched into his memories with perfect clarity. The familiar and unfamiliar, all now too easy for him to recall.

 

Looking around Sirius tried to gather where/when and how he was. The ground underneath his back was hard, but not made of stone. Dirt, Sirius realised, feeling it with his fingers. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, and when they did, they still didn’t see much. A cave-like ceiling where tips of roots could be seen poking from the tightly packed earth. They were underground then. Reaching to his right, his hand met a ragged stone wall. An underground cave.

 

Gingerly sitting up, mindful of the way all his muscles ached, He found out that they were not only in a hole, but in a prison-cell. Their feeble light was coming from a torch set on a wall behind thick iron bars that were set as a door to the cell.

A cell. They were in prison cell in fairyland. Fear clawed deep in Sirius’ chest, physically painful in the claustrophobic darkness.

Luckily the familiar, if not more pained than usual, sounds of his friends waking up pulled him back from the worst panic.

 

Sirius was not the only one struggling with the waking up part. An assortment of groans and grunts were there to confirm that no one else had slept any more comfortable in the hard floor of the cell. And if the confused mumbling and cursing that followed those groans was any indication, it seemed that like Sirius, the aching muscles were the least distressing part of waking up.

“I think I just saw the freakiest dream of my life…” Peter mumbled.

“There was a bleeding room and a woman flying to the moon and-“ James’ voice tapered off. He too had come to the startling conclusion about the dream, the dream with such familiar but at the same time unfamiliar figures haunting it.

“Did we all just have the exact same nightmare?” Evans hesitantly voiced what they all already suspected.

As Sirius’ eyes were getting used to the darkness of the oppressive dungeon, adjusting to the scant flickering light from the faraway torch, he saw the fear in his friends’ eyes. The way his brother had gone chalky white and looked so young. “So it would seem.” he whispered.

“Does anyone want to unpack all of that.” James’ usually upbeat voice had been trotted down by the exhaustion, fear and insanity of the last day, leaving behind a note of cynicism hitherto unheard from the mouth of the sunny and carefree boy.

 

“Oh hell no.” Sirius vehemently answered. Whatever the fairy queen had done, Sirius wanted no more of it. He did not want to be laid bare in front of all these people, especially people like Snape and Narcissa. But in truth he did not want to be laid this bare by his friends either. He loved them, of course he did. Loved James, Remus and Peter with intensity that he barely knew what to do with, but he did not want them to see him as he had been in the dream.

 

With his friends he felt like he could be a better version of himself. Stronger, funnier version. Not the wicked, weeping little boy that mother had to punish.

 

 

“Where are we?” Evans looked like hell and was curled in on herself. The curve of her spine against the wall and her body subtly angled so she was facing away from Snape. Sirius felt an empty hollow in the place where he would have usually felt dark amusement at seeing Snivellus trying to catch Evans’ eye, unsuccessfully. But he just felt hollow and slightly horrified knowing that both Evans and Snape had seen the scene in the red room. That they _knew_ him now. Intimately, in a way that Sirius had never wanted even his friends to know.

Snape turned his head and saw Sirius staring at him. The fire of hatred that had burned there had also been snuffed out, at least for the moment, as the other boy quickly turned his eyes away, a familiar hollowness reflected in his black eyes.

 

Sirius didn’t want to be here, did not want to be here with these people, enduring these tortures. He wanted to be in the Gryffindor common room, where he could pull the curtains around his bed and know that he was surrounded by his friends. People he trusted.

 

“Isn’t it quite obvious.” Snivellus’ rough voice answered his friend. “There are prison bars right there.”

 

“I think that the more pressing question would be whether we will even live to see another night.” The resignation in Remus’ voice was enough to break Sirius’ heart and at the same time rekindle something in him. An instinct to fight back, to make sure that Remus would laugh again.

 

“Of course we will,” Sirius promised the werewolf that had been his anchor and source of happiness in a dark world for so long, squeezing Remus’ shoulder with his hand. “We’ll get out of this cell, and out of this world, and we’ll be just fine. We will!”

The dancing torchlight accented Remus’ face with deep shadows from where the golden eyes looked much more wolfish than they did in the well-lit halls of Hogwarts.

“You can’t know that.”

“I do!”

 

“Excuse me.”

The voice that had interrupted their misery was very high pitched, with a trembling trill. It shuddered uncertainly through the bars of the cell, barely having the strength to reach all the way to their ears.

 

The voice belonged to an elf, a house-elf, as Sirius’ mind instantly recognised the short figure with long ears curving downwards, and the huge eyes that peered from the small triangular face. With house-elves, Sirius’ mind always went to Kreacher, but putting this elf standing next to Kreacher, the two could have been different species. Where Kreacher was old and hunched over, runny eyes always squinted and always covered in dirt, this specimen held none of the marks that made you recoil at seeing Kreacher.

 

While walking towards uncertainly, steps hesitant and hand clutched in front of the elf’s chest in cautious defence, the elf’s steps were light and fluid, almost bouncy. The eyes were bright and expressive, curious, if a little wary. None of the house-elves’ natural submissiveness and hunkering was to be found in the creature approaching them. Dressed in pale green clothes, with leaf-like designs, which not only fit, but were decorated with modest golden decorative stitches, the difference to house-elves to be found in the wizarding world was striking.

 

“Hello!” the elf waved shyly. “I shouldn’t be here.”

 

“who are you?” asked Regulus, hope in his voice. Regulus had always been inexplicably fond of Kreacher and the other house-elves, associating their presence with safety and care. Sirius had a very different outlook on the creatures that reported everything he did straight to mother.

 

“This one is called Nicnevin.” The elf answered. It was the high-pitched voice that identified it as a female, now that Sirius had manged to focus on listening. Nicnevin trotted rest of the way to the bars, staying just out of hand’s reach, but leaning slightly forwards in curiosity. “Nicnevin wanted to- ah eye. No.” She was snapping her fingers in concentration. “See! Yes. Nicnevin wanted to see that humans!” She smiled brightly. “Nicnevin say apologies, Nicnevin not very good at human tongue. No humans have come in elf-queendom for century and century.”

 

Now the marauders were all pressed against the bars of their prison, with Regulus trapped between the bars and his brother. The rest had also creeped closer, peeking between the boys’ heads at the creature that was staring back at them with happy curiosity.

 

“Did the queen send you, Nicnevin?” Remus asked, griping the bars of their cage with white knuckles.

“No one send Nicnevin. Nicnevin here because of own want. No one else know Nicnevin here.”

The accent was familiar, but much thicker coming from Nicnevin’s mouth than it was for the house-elves back home.

“Then why did you come? Why are you here?” Remus continued.

 

Nicnevin tilted her head in thought, thinking about her words before saying them. “Hmm… humans was at queen’s banquet. elves was very excited when hear humans coming. Humans look so strange, so funny.” Sirius tried not to bristle. “But humans also look- hmm what was it…” She muttered to herself in a strange language, “-Feared! Humans look feared. And hurt. Humans angry at the queen and the queen angry at humans. Elves think party very exciting. Some friends hope to see humans-“ She couldn’t find the word, and instead just made a show of ripping something apart with her hands. “-like that. Many elves no like humans anymore after humans put many elves into thrall.”

 

“Into thrall-?” Evans had pressed closer and was now effectively snuggling in James’ armpit. James was obviously trying to stay as still as possible in hopes of encouraging the red-head to stay.  “You mean slavery? But- But I thought that the elves in the kitchen were serving staff…Like the goblins in the bank…”

 

“Of course not.” Sirius snorted. “House-elves are entirely different than goblins, they’re natural-“ slave race. He had been going to say, like he had heard his mother, father, uncle and every other adult in his life say thousand times before, but looking at Nicnevin, and the way her body-language changed instantly, he couldn’t finish the sentence.

 

“Elves was here before humans come. Elves have queendom when humans come from south with copper-spears. Elves will be here, in queendom, when humans are gone.”

 

“Wait, wait, hold up.” Lily was still staring at Sirius. “You mean that they are actual slaves in the Hogwarts kitchen?! That they can’t leave if they want to?!”

 

“Why would they want to leave? They are treated well at Hogwarts. And they want to serve, they don’t want to be free.”

 

Remus elbowed Sirius harshly in the stomach, his yellow eyes harsh and strange in the half-light of the dungeon. Escaping the queer look that his friend was giving him, he was faced with Nicnevin’s forest-green stare. She looked between Sirius and Remus and Sirius felt a shiver crawl up his spine at the ghost of a smirk that tugged at the elf’s mouth.

 

“Yes. Elf wants to serve, goblin is greedy, werewolf is evil, and human is supreme. Nicnevin knows tales of humans.”

 

“Oh, cut the pity-party.” Narcissa burst out. “Wizards had to tame the elves because they were dangerous! Everybody knows that! Before wizards learned how to bind elves under their command, they were cruel and wild. Elves would steal children from mothers, kill for fun, destroy crops and trap innocent people in never-ending mazes to die. For no reason! Just because their nature was bent towards reckless and cruel mischief. Wizards gave them a purpose! So that they could be taught to use their magic for good purpose instead of wanton destruction!”

 

Nicnevin stepped closer to the bars, her shy demeanour disappearing from her completely. Her ears stiffened into sharp arrows pointing backwards instead of drooping down, and her small head was tilted upwards to stare Narcissa straight in the eye.

“Some elves bad, some humans bad. Some elves good, some humans good. Millenia both know this. Elf let human build on elf’s land. Elf help human, human give elf gifts. All good. Then human want more, come to queen’s court. Learns elfin-magic. Uses magic to put elf in thrall. Queen calls for elves come back queendom. Some Elves come and some stay. Elves stay and get put into thrall.” The fire died from Nicnevin’s voice as her spine slumped. “Queen do nothing. Queen say will no war start because elf foolish to stay.”

 

“When was this?” Asked Lily, who looked horrified.

 

“Oh, century and century ago. Was done slowly. First one elf in thrall, queen think will tell the human queen. Human queen other things to think. Elfin queen also other things to think. Then more and more elves in thrall. Too late then. Queen shuts the queendom. No more humans will come to court. No more humans will join the hunt.”

 

“But- That’s not- You are an elf, what do elves know about anything, anyway.” Narcissa stuttered and huffed in a way that Sirius could tell Nicnevin had gotten under her skin. Nicnevin had gotten under his skin too, there was no denying that.

 

“Elves know about elves, human could think.” Answered Nicnevin with clear sarcasm in her tone.

 

“But Nicnevin,” Regulus pressed closer to the bars, “Surely the queen can’t blame us for something that happened centuries and centuries ago! We are just- We are just kids.”

“Queen could want keep that there humans for thralls.”

“She can’t! That’s not- She can’t!” Sirius felt ice in his veins and panic building up as the words burst from his mouth too fast, too fearful. _You will never get out_ , his mother had said, and the same terrible claustrophobia of being imprisoned was pressing in his lungs, his heart, his stomach. “There has to be a way out!” he said, to himself or to someone else, he wasn’t so sure anymore. There had to be, because if there wasn’t, there was no reason to keep going. The only way to keep going from day to day was to believe that next time his bid for freedom would not turn to ashes in his hands.

 

“elf do bad thing, Human do bad thing, elf do more bad thing, human do more more bad thing. It is bad wheel. But now Nicnevin will do good thing.”

 

The elf whispered some words in her elfish language to the lock, and with a gentle nick, the door to the cell opened.  

 

There was something very perilous about an open door when you don’t know the price of stepping outside.

“And why should we trust you?! Huh! How do we know that this isn’t a trap? How do we even know you are who you claim to be?” Sirius blocked the way for anyone foolish enough to exit without doubting at least a little. The elf looked at him with her big green eyes, looking sincere. Sirius did not trust such innocence a second. 

 

“Nicnevin swear, on Nicnevin’s magic, that This one’s name is Nicnevin, that Nicnevin is not wearing any magic, Nicnevin truly looks this, and Nicnevin want humans to go back home.”

 

“The queen said that she would never let us leave without us serving her in return.”

 

“Queen has that right.”

 

“And what about you, Nicnevin?”

 

“Nicnevin do good thing for humans in elf-world. Humans do good thing for elf in human-world. Yes?”

 

“Yes.” Said Regulus quickly, before Sirius had time to say anything. Sirius spared a quick angry look at his little brother. “What? It is only fair.” Regulus argued back against Sirius’ angry look. “When we get back, I will ask what I can do for Kreacher, and we are good.”

 

How could his little brother be so smart but so stupid at the same time. Regulus would blindly sleepwalk into an active volcano as long as someone assured him that nothing bad would happen to him. He swallowed everything mother said without examining any of it. The only one who Regulus did not listen was Sirius, whose insistence that Regulus should just open his fucking eyes for once in his life, went completely unheeded. “Regulus, there is not a single reason that we should trust that thing over there.” Sirius hissed, gesturing towards Nicnevin, whose ears twitched in annoyance.

 

“Well what else can we do!” Regulus spit back. “Tell me Sirius, what other idea do you have!?”

Sirius exhaled and despaired. Was this what was becoming of him. A boy who would rather stay in the room than escape because he was afraid. Had the sorting hat been wrong after all.

 

“Fine, yes. You are right.” He finally admitted through gritted teeth.

 

“And since when did you become our leader who makes the choices for us?”

Fuck, Snivellus’ voice was annoying.

“You know, you are perfectly free to stay in this elvish dungeon for the rest of your life; as a matter of fact, most of us would prefer it.”

Evans gave him a glare, but Sirius had no time to worry about the red-head’s goody-two-shoes act. Nicnevin had gestured for the group to follow her, and was slipping across the corridor on silent feet, ears held open and tense. One finger on her lips, she turned to face the much nosier pack of humans and did a quick gesture with her hand to follow before slipping behind the corner.

 

Sirius took a deep breath and followed the little elf into darkness.

 

 

It would have been impossible to say how long they creeped through a labyrinth of dark underground corridors. These corridors were not lighted by torches, but were entirely wrapped in all-encompassing, oppressive darkness. Nicnevin had conjured a small green flame to float over them, which made everything eerie and unreal. They passed dozens of cells, all covered in dust and rust. Forgotten prisons, and if you didn’t look hard enough into the shadows, you might even imagine that they were all empty.

 

Their trek was completely silent, with only the sounds of their steps breaking the old silence hanging around this bone-littered dungeon.

 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity in an underground hell, their eyes registered light that wasn’t just the conjured will-o-wisp of Nicvenin’s. A small door at the end of the long and damp hallway was opened just a sliver by their elvish guide, letting a peek of red sunlight in.

 

They burst outside reverently, breathing in the fresh air like a man returning from desert would gulp down water. The sun was rising over the treetops on the horizon, the reddest sunrise Sirius had ever witnessed. The whole sky was bleeding and against all sense, it felt like the sunrays making their way through the thick branches of the trees also painted everything they touched with a red hue.

 

In front of them spread the forest, thick and hostile and making Sirius suddenly very homesick for the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts, in comparison familiar and tame. But if he turned his head, Sirius could see the twisting structures of the Queen’s palace looming threateningly against the red sky. Turning back would mean turning themselves to the mercies of the Fairy Queen, with her twisted games and needle-sharp smirk. It meant defeat and prison and giving up.

 

“Thank you Nicnevin. Truly. Are you sure you won’t get into trouble for this?” Remus was once again being the best of them.

 

“Nicnevin will be fine.” The elf assured worried Remus, smiling at the anxious werewolf. Sirius felt the ugly beast of jealousy in his chest and tried to stamp it out, like he always tried. He didn’t want to be the kind of person who feared that any scrap of kindness that his friends showed to other people was taken away from him, but that was the kind of person he deep down was.

 

“Yes, yes, it’s nice to be out of the cell, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of going home. How do we get back to- to Hogwarts!” Peter twisted his hands in a way that must have been at this point painful with the force he was doing it. James laid a comforting hand on the smaller boy’s shoulder, who was eyeing the forest in distress.

 

“There is two ways humans return to mortal world, after come here.” Nicnevin stepped forwards and ended up being the centrepiece of their half-circle. “One, queen take humans back.” She raised one long finger. “Two, humans that join wild hunt travel between worlds free.” She raised second finger.

 

“The wild hunt?” Sirius echoed, trying to not think how Nicnevin’s eyes looked like burning green coals in the odd red sunrise of the faerie morning.

 

“ Century, century, century and century human has joined. Human come with copper-spear to Land, elf invite human to hunt. If human strong enough, if human finish ritual, Green King gift human horn-crown and let human lead. Crown have power, give freedom to hunt between worlds. Now Queen closed realm for humans, crown was taken to hoard.” Nicnevin pointed into the mountains seen at the distance. “No one use anymore. But young human could. Young human started ritual on druid-stones. Young human finish ritual and take crown and take friends with young human home.”

 

“Wait, wait, wait. You mean that somewhere there-“ James pointed over the treetops at the distant peak pushing upwards from the landscape of thick Caledonian forest. “-Is some magical headpiece that can get us back home, but only if one of us finishes some- what ritual?”

 

“Ritual-starter will know what ritual-starter must do when find crown. Magic guides.”

 

“Which one of us?”

 

“Ritual-starter will know.”

 

“Okay, fine. Be unhelpful if you want. But first, we need to find this crown?”

 

“Is in hoard. Is not guarded. Human just go and take.” Nicnevin did a gesture with her hand that supposedly embodied how easy the task would be. Like somehow finding an elvish hoard, finishing some unknown ritual, and then traipsing across realms should be no problem for them.

 

“That’s a big forest to find one magical headpiece.”

 

“See that mountain?” Nicnevin pointed again at the green peak that rose like an island from a sea of trees, with only its very top bare and brownish, stone-grey. It was a small peak in the distance. “On top is doorway to hoard.”

 

“Right. Okay. Yes. Just hike through all that forest first.” James mumbled, hysteria edging into his voice.

 

“yes. You survive, you get home. Good?” The elf smiled cheerfully at them, and Sirius found that he might want to join James on his oncoming trip to hysteria.  

 

Their group watched in stunned silence as Nicnevin turned unconcernedly away and started trekking back towards the castle, a slight happy bounce in her steps as she must have felt the satisfaction of a good deed lifting her up.

 

Somewhere a call of an alien bird cut through the air, the sound long and unrecognisable from any bird native to Scotland.

 

Suddenly Remus cracked up, a short bark of laughter escaping from him as he looked at all of them gathered at the edge of a faerie forest, ragged and scared.

 

"Well. This is either going to end in homicide or in a group hug."

 

One didn't need to be a legilimens to know that absolutely no one was putting their money on the group hug situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well well well. Almost half a year later, and we finally reach the part where the main part of the story starts. What's more fun than an entire novelette of build up. 
> 
> quote from the beginning comes from English child ballads, you can read the whole thing here: ¨  
> https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch037.htm
> 
> The men with copper-spears are the Beaker folk.  
> https://www.britannica.com/topic/Beaker-folk
> 
> Gloriana is the Fairy Queen's name in Spenser's Faerie Queene and Titania is of course the name of the queen in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. She goes by several names. 
> 
> Ariel is also a name lifted from Shakespeare, Neit got his name from a celtic god of war. 
> 
> If you want to, there are two excellent collections of fairy-lore available free to read at:  
> https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm  
> http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33887/33887-h/33887-h.htm#Page_3
> 
> Google Nicnevin, if you want to get more insight into how fucked the kids are going to be in the future.
> 
> As always, leave a comment or come say Hi to me in Tumblr at Myyttiseenloveenlangennut


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “But to be lost in the forest is to be lost to this world, to be abandoned by the light, to lose yourself utterly with no guarantee you will either find yourself or else be found, to be committed against your will – or, worse, of your own desire – to a perpetual absence from humanity, an existential catastrophe, for the forest is infinitely boundless as the human heart.”  
> -Angela Carter, Overture and Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream

James had never been this thirsty in his life. Not even after the most gruelling quidditch practice, had he felt this all-encompassing dryness. They had been walking for hours, even if the passage of time was hard to measure.

The sun travelled across the sky, as expected, but the sun was also a _literal wheel_ , with bright round middle, and then several straight beams connecting to the outer ring of light, creating what one could describe as a carriage wheel made of pure light. James did not exactly trust that it could be counted to measure time as the familiar one back home.

He was also extremely hungry, but his feeling of hunger was mostly overtaken by his thirst.

James was sure that he wasn’t the only one thinking of the worst. There was no way they were going to walk all the way to the mountain before they collapsed from dehydration and exposure. They had been walking nonstop since Nicnevin sent them on their way, and the mountaintop was still a small dot in the distance, when they even were capable of glimpsing it amidst the landscape.

James knew that he wasn’t the only one desperately craning his neck and peering into every recess on the forest floor, hoping to see a stream, a pond, a puddle. So far, there had been nothing but dead leaves and ferns.

Remus was frequently walking with his eyes closed and nose turned up, sniffing the air, but even his lycanthropic senses seemed to come up with nothing. 

James had considered transforming into a deer to scout the area for water for at least few hours now, in hopes that his hoofs and long legs would be better suited to travel this environment than his ever-weakening human ones. He was sure that Sirius was thinking the same.

Still, he had not done it. He had kept stubbornly clinging to the idea that maybe they would get an easy break somehow; find what they needed to get back home tonight, and then he would never have to divulge his secrets to the Slytherins.

Also, he did not like the idea of leaving the group and scouting the forest by himself. He could still remember the howls that this forest had been filled with during the night, and even worse, the idea of getting separated from the others and ending up lost in the woods by himself wasn’t a pleasant thought either.

He kept putting off the idea, an told himself that they would go on for one more hour, and if it started looking really bad, he would volunteer.

Maybe the silence that had taken over the entire group had somehow taken over him too. They all had to know that things were looking very bad, but still they all simply stumbled onward, without saying a word.

Or maybe it was the birds. The birds were slowly eating on James’ nerves and making cold shivers run down his spine.

The first one, James had barely noticed in the red dawn. It had been simply a dead sparrow lying underneath some ferns, completely expected sight in a forest.

Then he had seen it again. And again. And again.

He kept telling himself that they were different birds, that predators attacked little birds in the wilderness all the time. This was a forest, there were several dead birds in forests.

Expect that this bird wasn’t decayed, nor eaten, it was always in the same position and always a sparrow. One wing twisted behind it and one leg pushed against its belly unnaturally, like it had been crushed to death by a someone squeezing it hard, and then left to lay there.

He tried to tell himself that it was the thirst, the exhaustion, and still every few miles the bird would be there pulling at some panicked string in James’ mind that he couldn’t quite get a grasp of.

A pained whimper behind him pulled James out of his own thoughts. The source of the noise was Remus, doubled over, pale as a sheet, pressing at his side with his hand.

Sirius was immediately at Remus’ side, supporting his friend and looking panicked. James and Peter followed.

“It’s nothing, it’s fin-nngh.” Remus tried to placate his friends unsuccessfully. They could clearly see that he was far from fine.

“You’re not fine.” Peter stated the obvious.

“It’s the curse. The curse that that bitch Bellatrix hit him with.” Sirius growled. Pulling on Remus’ robes and shirt, until he got a look at the blackened skin underneath.

“Remus! Why haven’t you said something?”

Remus shifted his eyes around, as Sirius peeled back his shirt even more, revealing the entire patch of burnt skin starting from his hip and spreading to a considerable amount of skin upwards.

“There’s nothing we can do about it anyway. I didn’t see the point.”

Sirius whined frustratedly but could not find words to argue against Remus.

“We could at least rest a little. We are all exhausted anyway.” James declared, and turned around to face the rest of the group. “Right-?” They were all distracted by something else.

The Slytherins and Evans were turned away, gathered around to look at something by a great big spruce-tree.

James strode forwards with strange terror tingling in the back of his mind.

They were all staring at a small shoebox, clean and crisp, and very much out of place deep in the faery-forest. He already knew what he would find when he peered closer, but still, it was like a punch in the gut to see the sparrow, with its twisted wing and leg, nestled inside the box, surrounded by soft scarves and a handful of seeds left near its head. The bird was as dead as all the other birds that had haunted James this entire hike, but nestled inside the comforts of the box, it looked much more macabre.

“How the hell did that get here?” Regulus asked softly.

James’ stomach knotted unpleasantly.

“Maybe the elves?” Snape speculated.

“But why?!” Regulus countered. They both noticed James at the same time, turning to look at him suspiciously. “You look spooked Potter.” Snape immediately homed in to the emotional crack in James’ walls, with accuracy of someone who had built their life around defending and exploiting such cracks.

“Shut up Snivellus.” James spat out on autopilot, barely registering his own words. He was too busy staring at the shoebox.

“You know something. Something you are not telling us.” Snape continued with an accusing tone, and his suspicious frown was mirrored by the other Slytherin’s, and to James’ horror, even on Evans’ face. 

“that’s ridiculous! It’s just some, some stupid prank those elves are trying to pull on us.” James scooped up the shoebox with the bird in it, and forcefully threw it as far away into the shrubbery as he was able to.

“I don’t think it is the elves.” Narcissa Black’s cultured voice came from somewhere behind James’ back and he felt such a sudden and violent loathing towards it, towards all three of the Slytherins, (and even Evans who looked at him just like they did), that it was like a physical thing lodged between his ribs. Unaware of the effect she was having on James, Narcissa continued. “I think it’s the forest. There is something, something wrong with everything. The air, the trees, everything. I keep seeing- I keep seeing things that are not possible and I don’t think it’s the elves.”

“Or maybe we are all just so hungry that we are going crazy.” Evans piped up cynically.

“But we all saw that box.” Regulus added quietly.

A thump startled them all, as a bird flew straight into the thick trunk of the tree they were gathered under, and then fell to the ground, one wing and one leg crumbled tight against its body.

“What in the fu- Snape approached the dead bird with his usual lack of concern shown towards dead and disgusting things and poked the small carcass in curiosity. James felt the same flush of emotions from earlier, only stronger this time. He needed Snape away from the bird, away from James’ life, away from this entire fucking forest.

“Its choked on something, it has- what is, it has a huge jewel stuck in its throat.” Snape kept examining the bird. “It has tried to swallow a diamond that got stuck in its throat and choked it.” He concluded. “I guess that’s why it was flying so uncoordinatedly.”

James didn’t have to look, to know that the jewel in the bird’s mouth would be pale yellow. It was still a shock to see the faintly glowing rock resting on Snape’s palm, as the boy manhandled the bird-carcass.

“Don’t touch that!”

James felt the stinging pain before he realised what was happening. Looking dumbly down at his hand, which had gone to slap the offending item out of Snape’s hands, he saw that there was now a circle of bloodied and torn flesh on it.

“Did you just bite me you weirdo!” James pushed Snape, surprised by his own rage towards the other boy, who ended up swiping towards James’ face with his nails.

Something in James spiralled completely out of control, as he ended up bunching up his fist and aiming to punch Snape. Snape retaliated by turning into a human equivalent of a wet cat being held by a human. Smaller and weaker than the one holding it, but capable of putting the fear of god into anyone getting too close.

Fighting Snape had always been a bit of a hobby and a laugh when there were wands involved. It didn’t feel like violence when you turned your opponent’s legs into jelly or tied their hands with their own sleeves. Duelling was noble and made one look good. Now that magic was removed, the scuffle took a much less dignified spin.

The red haze of James’ mind was abating with every stinging welt that Snape left on him, and with the realisation that the fist he managed to get through had left a visible black ring around Snape’s eye.

Straddling the wriggling boy, James froze with his fist in the air, realising with cold kind of disgust that he was in the process of continuing the beating. That he was _beating up_ someone for- for what exactly.

He was beating up someone to black and blue because-? (because he saw the bird. The moonstone. The proof of his imperfections. His stupidity. His failures. The proof that James just might be what Snape had always suspected him of being. An arrogant, stupid, child.)

A chill travelled down his spine.

Snape immediately took advantage of James freezing, and dug his fingers deep into his face, tearing up skin and making James wail in pain. The nails were reaching dangerously close to his eyes. Trying to retreat from the small but vicious Slytherin became James’ top priority.

As James shuffled backwards from Snape’s lap, (And oh how undignified fighting was when you could no longer imagine yourself looking like an illustration from a duelling-book), Snape’s eyes focused on something that was no longer James, something over his shoulder, something deep in the forest. His face lost all the flushed colour it had gained during the fight and the furious scowl dropped into a face of something very sad, desperate and fragile.

“Mom?” He said, disbelievingly, quiet enough for only James to hear, and bolted. It was like James ceased to exist, as Snape simply showed him aside and gathered his legs underneath him, taking of sprinting into the trees like a wild animal.

 _I keep seeing things that are not possible_ , Narcissa had said. _All those dead birds_. James thought. _Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck._

“Severus! Sev! Wait!” Evans shouted, and ran after her friend.

“What did you do!?” Yelled Regulus, eyes furious as he stared at James.

“I didn’t do anything- I-, He saw something in the woods and just went.”

“Saw something?” Narcissa echoed, pale and entirely aware of the weight of the _something_ , and to James’ surprise strode determinedly after the path of broken twigs and trampled ferns that Snape and Evans had cleared in their rush. Regulus followed after the tall girl like an anxious puppy.

“Let’s go then.” It was Remus, gritting his teeth, but standing. Looking very determinedly at the Slytherins’ figures moving away. “We _have_ to stay together.”

And Remus was right, like he usually was.

 

It was almost like straight out of a nightmare she had often had, running in an endless hostile forest after Severus, who spared no glance at Lily, while Lily feared that if she did not catch Severus, he would be swallowed by the darkness forever.

Maybe it was a dream. Maybe this whole thing was a nightmare and she would soon wake up on her own bed in the Gryffindor dormitories, and make her way down to the detention that would be boring and uneventful.

A girl can always hope.

Meanwhile she ran faster, unheeding of the branches that whipped her on the way. While it felt like it, the run did not take that long. It was a quick sprint, made harder by the terrain, but Lily could to her relief see that Severus had hit the brakes in front of her.

Then the relief turned into horror, as she also saw Severus start to quickly back up from what Lily suddenly realised was an edge of a cliff, but not quickly enough.

The ground grumbled underneath him, and she could hear his shriek and see his body fall down, away from her sight.

Lily approached the edge numbly, fighting the urge to rush to the precarious edge that had taken Severus.

Behind her, she heard stomping feet and laboured breaths, but she did not look in their direction, she stared at the water that still rippled with the splash that her best friend had made submerging.

The lake was not exactly big, only a pond compared to the lake at Hogwarts, but the water was clearer than anything she had ever seen in nature. The cliff-edge they were now standing stood high above the glittering waters, rising straight from the water’s surface like a wall. On the other side, the lake-shore met the forest in a much more forgiving angle, a small stream lazily snaking through the forest from the lake. But it was also clear that circling the slowly descending hill to that side would take time.

And Lily did not see Sev’s dark head rising to the surface. Instead he saw a small dark figure through the crystal-clear water submerging deeper into the dark depths of the lake.

“Where is he?” Another female voice asked beside Lily, and she pointed down. “The ground gave up, I saw him just- just fall! And he’s not getting up!” She sounded pathetic. Scared and close to tears.

“Maybe he hit his head going down.” The female voice said, sounding very alarmed. “Does he even know how to swim?” The voice added, now sounding extremely alarmed. Lily liked it. She felt panicked and appreciated that others felt the same.

There was a bit of cognitive dissonance looking to her left and seeing Narcissa Black there, looking scared and human and for some reason stripping out of her clothes.

Lily suddenly found herself with an armful of both outdoor cloak, and school-robes thrown at her by Narcissa Black, who was now wearing nothing but an antique-style white nightgown. (an undershift? Like ladies used to wear in the 18th century?) Her shoes were quickly also thrown away and then, in one graceful arc, the girl jumped from the cliff like an Olympic-sports swimmer.

Lily was left gaping.

She barely noticed that there were others now behind her, and that one of them was pulling her back from where the ground was perilously shifting underneath her boots.

For one moment she contemplated jumping also, but then reason won. Her experience with water started and ended with the frankly rather polluted river slowly drifting through Cokeworth, where you could always reach the bottom with your feet if you reached with your toes.

“We need to get down.” She said instead and wrapped her hands around the expensive robes more tightly. She saw Regulus black use a stick to drag Narcissa’s other boot from the unsteady ground and a giggle mixed with a sob escaped her.

She heard Potter and Black talk, but the words went in on one ear and out from the other. Instead she focused on putting one foot in front of the other and finding the quickest route down to the approachable shore of the lake.

 

The water, as it hit him, was freezing cold. It sent needles deep into his arms and legs and constricted his chest. It made him numb and on fire at the same time. He couldn’t say which way was up and which way was down, and in the perfect, quiet, dark underwater, it didn’t even seem to matter. Severus felt calm. Just seconds ago, his heart had been pounding and his brain cluttering like a fork stuck in a washing machine.

But it was beautiful down here.

It was hard to remember the last time he had felt this calm, maybe in the rare instances that his mother had held him.

It hadn’t been mother that he had seen and rushed after, behind the trees. He had realised it as he had gotten close enough, during the few seconds that the ground underneath him had turned from solid to nothing, and he had pummelled down.

The visage resembling mother had bled to reveal another ghostly figure of a woman beneath, a monstrous thing with red eyes. A witch from the muggle fairy-tales, a hag, but not really. Something grotesque but fascinating at the same time.

It had reached for him, and it had most importantly _looked_ at him with those red eyes, looked like it had truly seen him, and it terrified Severus how much pleasure it had given him in those few seconds to be truly _seen_. 

Even by a monster impersonating mother. Even then.

He felt the touch of countless slimy fingers reach for him, wrap around his arms and legs as he sank towards them.

There was something in the deep dark that he needed to reach, he simply knew it.

He opened his eyes and saw the last air bubbles from his mouth spiralling upwards, towards the faint light that filtered through the crystal-clear water and only pale greenish glow at the depth he had sunken in. all around him aquatic plants had tangled into his hair, arms, legs, everything.

He had almost reached the lake-bottom, the dark, muddy, ground barely visible from the weeds growing on it, but there was something very visible protruding from it, not a rock as it first might have looked.

He was hovering over a skeleton, he realised with not much emotions left in his oxygen-depleted brain.

The skull, with weeds growing out of its eye-sockets was somehow enthralling, and there was almost something, a whispering in his mind. Severus, hovering at the edge of unconsciousness, simply obeyed the whispers and reached out with his hand, touching and grabbing around a bone-

And then there was a pull from above, hands closing around his torso and dragging him up, up, up-

 

Lily and the others reached the water’s edge to see the pale figure of Narcissa drag a smaller black bundle with her. Lily felt relief, then fear, seeing how limp Severus was, then relief again as she saw him twitch, to kick with his legs, until he was more or less standing up with his own strength. Well, strength still very much leaning on Narcissa Black, but alive and kicking.

Looking at the older girl, Lily suddenly and inexplicably hated her. She hated the fact that she now stood on the shore supporting Severus, (Lily’s Severus, Lily’s best friend, Lily’s responsibility!) her hair tightly plastered against her skull, the Victorian nightgown ruined by the mud and water, and small cuts sluggishly bleeding on her hand and feet. She looked like someone who had just performed a heroic deed and was still standing firm. She looked like a real hero. (While Lily stood uselessly on the ground.)

Severus gave the Slytherin girl a genuine, grateful smile, before his usual mask of sullenness came back.

Jealousy burned like an inferno in Lily, and she hated that it did. She had almost lost her best friend, her childhood companion who knew her better than anyone and who she knew better than anyone. Severus had almost died and all she could feel was the burning anger towards everyone and everything.

A good friend would have been grateful, had felt nothing but joy.

Lily had never been a good friend. Her relief was mingled with deep humiliation, the feeling of failure and resentment towards Narcissa, who she should have been thankful towards.

Crossing the distance between herself and Severus, she dropped Narcissa’s robes to the forest floor and her shaking legs ran until she collapsed against soaked Severus.

Burying her face in his neck, relishing in the solid weight of him, Lily shook and held back tears. She had no right to cry. She had failed to protect him, and then failed to save him. It had all been Narcissa Black and Lily was useless.

“I’m okay.” Severus said softly, and Lily withdrew only enough to be able to look at him in the eye. She still kept an iron-grip on his arms, refusing to relinquish her hold. “Don’t ever- Don’t you dare- Don’t you dare to leave me!” She had meant to say something nice. What came out ended up being an order.

“Lily, it’s fine.”

It was not fine.

“It’s not fine. I should have stopped you. I should have- **I** should have saved you, you’re my friend!” 

“I don’t-“ Need saving Severus no doubt had been about to end his sentence, but reality didn’t allow him to do that. Not with Narcissa standing right there, dripping wet. A familiar flush of humiliation did its best effort to make an appearance on the bone-white, frozen face.

“I’m fine,” he sneered. “Don’t bother yourself.” 

The words slashed against Lily’s feelings like a sword.

“Well, I’m just worried.” She sniped sharply. “You know. As a friend.”

“Well don’t be.”

“Hey! You don’t talk to Evans like that!”

 “You stay out of this Potter!” Lily screamed and even James wasn’t fool enough to continue speaking in the face of Lily’s distress. Her green eyes were practically all black pupil and there was a way that her face twitched that made it clear that mentally she was teetering on a brink.

It threw James off a loop. In her mind Lily was always righteous, feisty, pretty and proud. Not a mess.

“You.” She repeated, pointing a trembling finger at James, “stay the fuck out of this.”

Backing a step, mostly out of shock of hearing Lily curse, James felt even more unbalanced.

Lily swallowed back the hysteria that was bubbling in her gut, a mixture of adrenaline, fear, hunger, physical pain and uncertainty that had been hardened into a diamond of panic in the few minutes she had thought that Severus was dead.

 She could have lost Severus even before she got to tell him….

But now that he was alive and safe, the courage to talk about it had fled her again. The sneer on his face, the cold rejection of her worry had taken away her certainty that she had to tell him. The image of that same rejection after she told him would be too much to bear.

“Sorry. You know me, I worry. I’m- Oh god, you’re shivering. Take my cloak.” She shed her outer cloak and passed it to Severus, who made no move to accept it.

“I’m fine.” Severus refused her, but more gently this time.

“humour me.” Lily smiled tightly, and Severus accepted, if rather hesitantly, pulling the cloak around his shoulders.

The worst of the emotional storm leaving her, Lily turned towards Narcissa, the girl pulling her own robes hastily on, where Lily had dropped them. She looked almost like a different person, soaking wet hair and face streaked with mud. And the white gown that was tightly glued to her body left very little for imagination, which explained the haste that she struggled into her clothes with.

Lily wasn’t entirely sure how the fact that she had now seen Narcissa Black’s nipples through wet silk was going to change the way she looked at the world, but she was sure that it would. The pretty Slytherin girls with their perfect make-up and 1000-galleon clothes had never felt entirely real to Lily. They had always looked more like Barbie-dolls than living, flesh beings.

“Thank you.” Lily made her mouth say, looking at the other girl, towering tall over her, eyes still the same cold ones from Hogwarts. She hated that it was this hard to do the right thing. “For jumping after Sev. It was very brave of you.”

Narcissa stared at her baffled, like she was some kind of animal that had suddenly learned to speak.

“yes, well. Someone had to.” The blonde girl sneered, and Lily felt small as a bug. The same she always felt, ending up in the way of older Slytherin girls. Beautiful, cultured, pure-blooded Slytherin girls.

“well, thanks anyways.” Lily bit out, sounding insincere even to herself.

Narcissa wasn’t fooled either, staring at Lily with that mocking smile on her face, like she knew exactly how far beneath her you were.

“You are very welcome, even if I did not do it for you. I am also pleasantly surprised that you have any basic manners. With your upbringing.”

“Oh fuck you!” flew loudly from her mouth, before she had time to stop herself. Everyone on the shore turned to stare at her and Narcissa Black, and she flushed as red as her hair. Lupin and Pettigrew had been lapping water into their mouths and looked at Lily in confused alarm. Potter and Black looked delighted, which made Lily feel worse.

But Severus, Severus just looked ashamed, which was the worst of all.

“What the hell, Lily?!” He asked, stomping to stand by Narcissa’s side, and it was too much. She needed to leave, right now.

She stomped away, her stomach burning hot and liquid with her anger and there was a pressure behind her eyes that kept growing stronger and stronger, but no tears came. She kept blinking her eyes, but it felt like they kept growing drier and itchier with each blink.

Stomping directionless, she felt a distance forming between herself and her body.

 

“Hey! Hey Evans!”

 

Stopping on her tracks, Lily suddenly imagined turning around and punching Potter. She could imagine it. Blood on her knuckles. Bruises on his face. Potter’s glasses flying in the air and getting crunched underneath her boot. His usually so arrogant voice whimpering in pain.

She felt cold and sick. She did not hate Potter that much, not enough to want to sell her soul for one moment of satisfaction, but this situation had been hell on her carefully moderated emotions. She could not give in, could not let anger surface, but she also knew that she was at her breaking point.

“Hey Evans, don’t listen to Snivellus, he’s a slimy little git, you deserve so much better-“

“Oh. Is that so.” Lily’s voice was flat. She was alone in a parallel world with no magic nor any tools of survival, and the only friend she had was turning against her. She should have been afraid, but instead she could only think of the fact that whatever she did her, there would be no authority figure here judging her. No society, no boundaries. No rules. Nothing standing between her and her impulses.

You are a Gryffindor, Lily told herself. You are chivalrous, you are good. You are chivalrous, you are good. You are-

“That is exactly so. Honestly, I don’t get why you still hang around him, he’s eyeballs deep in dark arts and a creep. Do you remember that incident on our first year, that curse he used- His family must be so soaked in dark arts for him to know a curse like that. I would stay the hell away-”

“You don’t know anything about his family.”

“Look Lily, I get that as a muggleborn you don’t know, and on that train where you met him, he probably seemed fine, but I’m also a pureblood and I know a thing or two about those pureblood families that get twisted. I mean, look at Sirius’ family! They are mad about dark arts and the only thing you can do is try and get the hell away! I’m just trying to protect you.

Lily clenched her hands into tight fists.

“Oh. is that what you are trying to do? Protecting the dumb muggleborn. From the evil, tainted blood of anyone who’s related to Severus. Weren’t we the ones who were against the whole blood-judgement mania?” A dry bark of laughter escaped from her. “How gallantly stupid you are.”

“That is _not_ what I said-“

Lily twirled around, grabbing the front of Potter’s robes and yanking him closer, until they were face to face and Lily’s spittle could land on his cheek as she interrupted Potter’s speech with her own.

“You think you are the hero of this story? Hm? You think you are some kind of a good guy?! Newsflash, you are not.” She pushed Potter back harshly, wrapping her hands around her own torso to make sure that they wouldn’t strike out.

“You think that I’m just some stupid, naïve, little girl who needs to be saved from her own stupidity of making the wrong kind of friends! That I just skip along in Hogwarts without ever comprehending the complexity of the wizarding world. And that somehow it is your chivalry-bound duty to hold my hand and tell me what is good for me and show me around like some kind of a trophy!” Her tone took a mocking high pitch. “Oh look everyone! Look how good I am, I have a muggleborn girlfriend! Look how I saved her!”

“That is not what I think!”

“Like hell it isn’t! You keep making my life miserable and keep hunting and mocking me and then think that I’m going to- what? Go out with you?! Fuck off Potter. Fuck off with your fucking superiority!”

“What? When have I ever-?“

“Every fucking day! Flaunting along, look at my expensive broomstick, look at my expensive clothes, look at expensive shits I take! We all get it, you are a posh bastard!”

While Lily’s parents had always tried to steer their daughters away from the northern accent that dominated Cokeworth, mostly comprising of working-class people, Lily had ended up adopting the accent anyway. She tried to keep to the RP that her parents drummed into Petunia and her, but the clipped upper-class tongue stayed with her only when she was calm and collected. Her emotions always brought with them the northern drawl.

Right now, in her uncontrollable word vomit, she sounded like Tobias Snape yelling obscenities while drunk. She was vaguely aware of it, and horrified by it, but she could not make herself stop. Her mouth had deserted her and was throwing up words, even when her mind kept recoiling from them.

“And just breezing away your studies, never putting any effort into anything, because why would you! Why would you need to make an effort, heir to a rich, pureblood, family?! And that’s not even enough, you have to make sure that the rest of us don’t get an education either! What do you care if you pull a prank and stop others from studying, disturb a lesson! it’s not _your_ problem is it? _You_ are not going to be turned away from apprenticeships because you have a muggle background and you have to be twice as good as a pureblood to even get a shit job! No, you and your little friends are just having a laugh and being merry and getting cutesy little letters from your adoring family and rubbing it on my face how I will never have any of that! That I will always be clawing my way through scraps that people like YOU deem to throw at me!! How fucking alone I am in this stupid world.”

Lily had to stop to breath and James felt the unfamiliar feeling of having no idea what to say. This girl in front of him was not the Lily Evans he had imagined taking on a date, this was an entirely unknown creature and the raw emotion hanging in the air was thick enough for even James to hold his tongue from making a joke of the whole thing. The glib remarks dissolved away, and James had no idea what to say if you couldn’t say a glib remark.

“You’re not lonely. Everybody likes you.” He ended up saying, befuddled.

“Fuck you.” Lily’s voice had gone slightly hoarse from the yelling. “My sister wishes that I didn’t exist, my parents treat me like an outsider in our home, I have exactly one friend who is pushing me away for his new Slytherin friends, everybody in school either treats me like a naïve fool that needs to be patted on the head, or a piece of mud stuck in their shoe, expect you four, who treat me like a thing that you can probe and prod until I snap and then you and your friends can all go have a laugh behind the corner at my expense!”

“We just want to make you laugh. To loosen you up a little.”

“Well do you see me laughing. You think that after all the shit I get in life, that burning my notebooks is going to make it all better?!”

“Look I… I never knew that you were having such a hard time-“

“Go to hell.” She said, voice weak and scratchy.

The silence hung between them heavy and oppressive. Lily was breathing hard and James was barely breathing. He felt small. Small and humiliated for a reason he could not understand. He hadn’t done anything wrong, Evans was just- And here was the problem. He didn’t know what Lily was. He didn’t know anything about Evans.

“Okay um. I’m going to- I’m going to go now. Just- Don’t wander away from the group.” He finished lamely and shuffled back to his friends.

Lily felt small, and stupid, and _lonely_. Tears were finally prickling at her eyes, and quickly she found a rock that was big enough to hide behind, away from the eyes of everyone. Just to sit down for a moment.

 

 

Narcissa felt vaguely disappointed in herself for not conducting herself better in front of Snape’s friend. Yes, she was a muggleborn, but that was no excuse for Narcissa to act like one.

“I’m sorry about Lily cussing you out.” Snape said, looking very uncomfortable, the poor dear.

 _It might not have been entirely her fault_ , Narcissa felt like she should have said. But the hate in the muggleborn’s eyes, as she had looked at Narcissa had been real, and Narcissa was not interested in playing nice with an uncouth creature like her anyway. “It is about what I expected from a Gryffindor.” She shrugged instead. She felt cold, her muscles ached, and a bunch of boys had seen her almost naked virtue. She didn’t feel very up to her normal standards of behaviour.

Severus looked even more troubled, and Narcissa felt slightly sorry for him. He kept clinging to his friendship with Evans, despite how many times his Slytherin peers had, sometimes more, sometimes less, gently discouraged him from it. He was a halfblood, so it was mostly seen as his muggle-blood pulling him towards other mudbloods, but if he ever wanted to raise above his nature, he would need to supress the impulses of his worse side. A gentle touch on her arm brought her back from her musings. Severus was looking at her with real gratitude in his eyes that she had never seen in the angry and sarcastic boy before.

“Hey. Thank you. For real. You did- you did save my life. I didn’t think you would, I mean I didn’t think anyone- never mind, just thank you.”

Narcissa felt an unfamiliar warmth in her chest, a pleasant curl that made her smile despite her coldness and misery. “Of course.”

It was a strange feeling. To be thanked for something _real_. She had never before received anyone’s gratefulness for anything real. For something that was more than simple societal babble, _thank yous_ and _excuse mes_ and _my pleasures_ dropped on their places as good manners dictated without any meaning behind them. Those well-mannered empty words had been the only words of appreciation she had ever gotten.

How strange, these avalanches of feelings this forest forced out of her. She blinked and breathed heavily to steady herself, to not let any of them to show on her face.

“I should probably go after her.” Severus muttered and looked at Evans’ red hair flickering between the trees.

“Let her be and calm down for a while. And sit down, you look ready to faint.” They both watched as Potter followed after Evans, Severus with his usual hateful gaze. Narcissa couldn’t help but feel a flicker of satisfaction seeing Potter’s face covered in red scratches. Served the Gryffindor bully right.

“I think you both need to sit down, you look like death.” Regulus walked towards them, holding Narcissa’s boots in his hands. She accepted them with greed, her toes tinted blue and numb.

The three Slytherins sat down near the water’s edge, quenching their thirst and letting their aching feet rest. Narcissa struggled her wet toes back into her shoes and wished desperately for her warm bed at the Slytherin dungeons.

“But the muggleborn is right about that it was a very brave thing what you did.” Regulus said, tugging on the grass growing from the ground. He looked at Narcissa with the kind of hopeful admiration that he had once looked at his brother with.

 _No, it wasn’t._ Narcissa immediately thought. It wasn’t true, she hadn’t been brave, or heroic or any of the other nonsense that Regulus and Severus and even Evans now seemed to associate her with.

The lake below had been so clear-watered that she had easily seen that no sudden large rocks were there near surface for her to hit her head with. The drop was no worse than the cliff near summer mansion’s sea-side beaches. She was a good swimmer, had been since childhood.

Their mother had always believed that good physical condition was necessary for every witch, to maintain their health and beauty. She firmly maintained that delicateness and sickliness were two very different things and should not be confused with one another. Sickly wives would not bear heirs to their families, nor maintain their figure, no matter how pale and lethargic the beauties of romantic paintings and poems were.

Most healer authorities agreed, and the literature of Narcissa’s youth (Witches’ Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness, Mrs. Bloxam’s Book of Household Management, Letters to Young Witches on Their Entrance into the World, Witchhood and Marriage), also agreed that modest exercise in moderation was the key to young Witch’s happiness and success in life.

Narcissa’s mother had taken all the self-help books written by respected wizards concerning the upbringing of daughters and made sure that all three of her daughters would stay in shape without compromising their modesty. Quidditch was out of question for obvious reasons, as were most other sports demanding masculine sensibilities, but swimming was not one of those sports.

Decked in thick swimming dresses, the three girls were religiously dragged to the manor lake and made to finish their laps, be the water any temperature. Andromeda and Bellatrix never found their laps to be more than an annoyance, but Narcissa fell in love the first time she managed to glide through the waters by herself.

She did not need to be forced to the lake, and often took into the waters by herself, floating in the peaceful quietness by herself, with no demands of her time, no fear of failing as a daughter, no need to please anyone but herself. Just her and the quiet underwater hum in her ears, as she looked up at the clouds travelling through the skies.

The secret path to the cliffside on their French summer-manor, was her only secret from mother, and despite the quilt, she could not bear to give up the change to plummet through the air to the salty sea meters and meters underneath, when her parents thought that she was resting in the boathouse.

She had never once thought that she could be in any danger when slipping into the cool waters of the perfectly still lake, even here in the strange otherworld that kept haunting her with Andromeda’s hairbrushes, hidden underneath the leaves, and of Artemis barking between the trees.

“We Slytherins have to stick together.” She said, instead of denying her bravery. She could use this. She had to use this to be perfectly honest. Out of everyone in this group, she was the only one without an ally. When the goodwill would start to burn out, when they would all be hungry and suspicious and tired, when there would be a need to make the decision to leave someone behind, to blame someone, to attack someone, it would be her.

The four Gryffindor idiots would stick together like they had stuck together since the first year of school. And when it really came to it, Regulus would latch onto his brother, just like Sirius would protect his younger brother. They might have been at odds at the moment, but they were still _brothers_.

And if push came to shove, Snape and Evans would close ranks immediately. They were childhood friends, and no matter how much pressure there had been for Severus to cut ties with Evans, he hadn’t. He wouldn’t start now.

And Narcissa had no one.  

Her only hope was that Severus would honour the life-debt he now owed to Narcissa and pay it back if needed.

“That’s true.” Regulus agreed. We are outnumbered by the Gryffindor’s, it isn’t very reassuring.”

“Especially _those_ Gryffindors in particular.”

“We need to make a pact!” Regulus eagerly shuffled closer to his wet housemates. “That no matter what, we three Slytherins will always have each other’s backs!”

“How very Macbethian.” Severus said, but his lips were twitching upwards.

“Well.” Narcissa brushed back a wet strand of hair from her forehead, allowing Regulus’ eager eyes lift her spirits and smiled, “I would of course prefer the company of other witches to make such a coven, but you two will do in this case.” She kept her voice playful and was happy to notice that even Severus had taken her joke as it was.

Regulus extended his hand, looking at the other two expectedly. Narcissa put her own hand on top of his and finally Severus followed suit, placing his hand on top of hers.

“We now swear to never leave each other behind, to look after the coven of us three Slytherins, and defend each other against both Gryffindors and the whatever the forest throws at us.” Regulus said, solemnly.

“We swear!” Narcissa and Severus repeated after him, and it felt nice. Silly, and a bit stupid, but nice.

Narcissa did not for a second believe that in a real situation Severus or Regulus would actually choose their “coven” over Sirius and Evans, but it was still a nice idea, and the feel of hands under and over her own felt good in this dangerous world they had found themselves in.

 

 

“Lily! Lily!”

Lily had a terrible headache. Her face was wet with tears and her throat was parched. It’s been more than 24 hours since she drank _anything_ , she realised and then tried to stand up. It did not take on her first try, as she felt too dizzy and weak. She tried again, slower this time, and managed to get on her feet.

“Lily!”

A stubborn thread of anger towards her friend almost made her keep her mouth shut, but she was too exhausted by now to be passive aggressive.

“I’m here Sev.” ¨

Severus bounced over a fallen tree to meet Lily and looked relieved to see her.

“There you are. I was getting worried when you didn’t come back.”

“Oh. So, we are allowed to be worried now.”

At least Severus had the sense to wince and look ashamed.

 “Look-, Lily…I’m sorry. I was scared, and I took it out on you. I don’t know why, but I just- I just feel like I’m on the verge of breaking apart all the time.”

“Well, I certainly know how _that_ feels.” Lily sighed. “And I’m sorry I cussed out Narcissa Black, she did save you, and for _once_ probably didn’t deserve to be yelled at.”

“It’s okay. She can be a bit of a condescending bitch sometimes.”

Lily snorted, and suddenly it felt like everything was going to be okay. At least a little bit more okay than it had been only a minute ago. “I’m so fucking thirsty right now. At least we found water!” She grabbed Sev’s elbow and together they started to walk back to where the lake was.

“I know. At least some good came out of getting almost drowned.”

“Why did you run?” Lily finally asked the question that had been burning on her tongue since she saw Severus bolt. It had not been fear that had driven Severus to rush away, she knew that.

“I thought I saw- Lily I thought I saw my mom. I know, it sounds crazy, and it sounds even crazier that I would be stupid enough to follow it, but-“

“It’s not crazy.” Lily interrupted him. “This whole place is crazy. It’s like- It’s like I’m feeling everything all at once. It’s like I’m feeling _all_ my feelings, _all_ the time!” 

“…yeah. I know what you mean.”

Severus buried his hand in his pocket and felt the smooth shape of the bone he had picked from the bottom of the lake. He should throw it away, he thought.

He didn’t.

 

James was staring at Evans and Snape, Lily eagerly drinking water from her cupped palms, then abandoning any moderation and simply dunking her face into the water. Snape gathered her long red hair in his hands and held it back.

Right. When he stopped to look, he might see why Lily considered James to be the asshole and Snape the friendly one.

His thoughts on Snape had not changed a bit. He was still the most suspicious person he had ever met. Keen on social climbing, as most of the second or third generation pureblood families were. (Not Peter’s family, but a lot of others were). Weirdly obsessed with dark arts. Pretending to be Lily’s friend while also rubbing elbows with the likes of Mulciber and Malfoy. The whole package of unsettling.

He was almost a perfect match to the dark-arts obsessed, treacherous Slytherins who had hunted mother and uncle Eustace in Hogwarts back in the day. James had grown up on mother’s stories of her youth in Hogwarts and recognised the type. (James realised that Salak the Snivelling Slytherin was not a real person, but a bedtime story character formed from mother’s experiences in school. The point was still valid.)

But if he looked at it from Lily’s perspective…well. Meeting a friendly wizard on the Hogwarts express when you didn’t know anyone else. Unaware of the implications that he was gagging to be sorted into Slytherin. Unaware of the blood-purity politics. Of course, she hadn’t turned Snape away. And instead of trying to explain it all to Lily, James had simply jumped over and tried to drive Snape away. Of course, it looked bad from Lily’s point of view.

 _I need to apologize to Evans_ , he thought with conviction. Later, when I can catch her alone. I can’t drive Snape away from her, she needs to have the facts and do it herself. He’s been…he’s been pretty ignorant about the muggleborn experience in Hogwarts despite his vocal rallying cries for fighting for their sake, against the Dark Lord’s supporters, he also silently admitted to himself.

Evans lifted her face from the water and grinned at Snape. The two looked happy, despite the circumstances, and it made James feel weird. The old and familiar jealousy was there, but it had changed somewhat. Lily’s thick northern accent as she had cursed. The way her spittle had landed on his face. The smell of rancid sweat as she had pulled him close.

Of course, he had always known that she was a person like everyone else, but still, it had taken him by a surprise.

Looking as Evans leaned against Snape, James quickly turned his attention elsewhere, before the confusing emotional spiral swallowed him whole.

He got up from the tree stump he had been brooding on and went to sit next to Peter. He glanced at Remus, who had already fallen asleep after getting water in his system, his injuries taking their toll on his stamina. The werewolf’s head was resting against Sirius’ shoulder and Sirius was carefully still, looking at sleeping Remus with both worry and fondness.

“Hey Peter…do you think I’m…a bad person?”

“What!?” The short boy looked at James like he had grown a second head. “Of course not. You’re the best James!”

James carded his fingers through his hair (which, gross, he needed to bathe now that they had a lake) in a nervous habit.

Well- okay. Maybe a bit vague question. “I talked with Evans, and I mean- I just. Do you think I’m selfish?”

“Evans has shit taste in people anyways.” Sirius huffed, turning his head to join the conversation. “Her standards for friends are somehow unreasonably high and inexplicably low at the same time. That’s why she doesn’t have any _real_ friends”, He laughed.

James felt his mood darken even more. So, Sirius had noticed that Evans wasn’t the popular girl James had somehow just assumed she was. How had _he_ not?

Remus stirred from his troubled sleep with a grimace. The anxiety for Remus’ wellbeing was a constant background hum for the marauders, and it was not getting any easier to deal with.

“unnh- whats going on?”

“Nothing important. Prongs is just being dumb. Hey Moony, you don’t think that Prongs is selfish or a bad person?” Sirius asked amusedly at the boy gingerly extracting himself from Sirius’ shoulder.

Remus blinked and looked at the rest of the marauders sitting around him.

“What-? No, of course not.”

James felt his guts turn to ice. He was lying. Remus was _lying_.

Remus was a good liar, when it came to making excuses for the teachers and covering up the marauders’ antics. But as a marauder, James was very familiar with Remus’ tells, even if the teachers were not.

Anger was the first emotion that leaped at him, and it was with horror that he supressed _the same feelings he had felt towards Snape_ when he had been holding the moonstone. The indignation. The offense that someone would dare. The initial flush of anger mixed with sheer terror, because what kind of friend am I. What kind of a person am I. Why couldn’t anyone be just fucking _honest_ with him-

There was a thump.

A bird knocked itself against a tree stump and fell smack-dab middle of their loose circle.

“What the hell-“ Peter squeaked.

“Does it have something inside its mouth?” James asked, already resigned to knowing the answer.

Sirius poked at the dead bird with a stick, trying to get a look at the beak.

“James. What’s going on?” asked Remus, with his no nonsense, I want the truth, not bullshit tone.

James hesitated, and then pushed the hesitation away. They were his _friends_. His best friends, he loved them. His marauders. If he couldn’t tell them, if he got mad at them for asking, well that just would make him a shitty friend. The exact person Evans accused him of being. That Snape already thought of him as.

“When I was a small kid,-“ He started, every word needing to be dragged from his mouth, “-I found an injured bird in our garden. It wasn’t anything unusual- I barely even remembered the whole thing before coming here, before all the birds in here- but well. I took it inside and showed it to mother- and. And it was alive when I took it in my hands, I remember that. And I took it to mother, and mother put it inside a shoebox, and told me that it would heal. That I had saved that bird.”

James took a measured breath.

“But- but it was. It looked like that, you see.” He pointed at the bird corpse, with it’s one wing and one leg crushed against its body. “I was just a kid, and I remember holding it in my fist, like that –“ He made a tight fist, thinking now, with older mind, about the small fragile animal in his tight, careless grip. “And mother promised that it was going to be okay. We put it in a shoebox and mother took it away, and the next morning she showed me the shoebox and there was a healthy bird inside. They don’t heal that fast don’t they? They can’t, right?”

“Maybe your mother had skele-grow.” Peter suggested.

“It wouldn’t work on animals. Especially on birds, because they have hollow bones so different from mammals.” Remus quietly shot down Peter’s hopeful look.

“it was so cold, when I passed it to mother.” James continued. “It was so cold and still, and I remember being worried, but mother promised that I had saved it. And the next morning there was a healthy bird. I was eight, what was I supposed to think? That mother lied? Why would she-“ he didn’t know how to complete his story. It sounded so stupid now that he had said it all out loud. It was all so- insignificant, compared to Remus’ lycanthropy or Sirius’ troubles at home. That he couldn’t handle one dead bird.

“There’s something in its mouth.” Sirius said.

“It’s a yellow diamond isn’t it?”

“yes.” Sirius agreed and looked at James. They all looked at him, and this was the part of the story he wanted to tell them even less. He wanted to lock it deep, but he couldn’t. Even he had realised that the forest would not stop assaulting him with dead birds.

“It’s the moonstone. It swallowed it, and then it died. Because what kind of a stupid thing would swallow the moonst- the story of the moonstone whole? A dumb thing that will slam into a tree and die.”

“What’s the moonstone?” Remus asked, staring James with those golden eyes. Patient, but firm.

Indeed. What was the Moonstone? An imaginary bedtime story? Mother’s weird delusion?

 _Uncle Eustace will bring you the Moonstone, and then you will be my sweet baby-boy forever,_ she had whispered to him before tucking him to bed so many times that he hadn’t stopped to think the meaning behind the words anymore, as he grew older.

“Every time I have asked my mother where uncle Eustace is, she tells me that he is in the Indian jungles, looking for the Moonstone.”

“So, you think he is… dead?” Remus tried to follow the story to its logical conclusion.

“I don’t know what I think anymore.” James admitted. He remembered his mother this summer, kneeling in front of the fireplace, burning letters, letters addressed to _my nephew James_ with unfamiliar handwriting. Mother slapping him, like she had never done before. Looking at James with hatred, like she had never done before.

The silence of the house after that. The way James had pretended that the thing in the living room had never happened. The way his mother had also pretended.

“I went to look for uncle Eustace’s name and picture in the Gryffindor quidditch team records. (But only this year. Because I had never before in my life thought to check something mother said to me). There was nothing. I even asked to look at the Gryffindor house records in the library. There was no Eustace Patil in them.”

“What do you mean there was no-?” Remus furrowed his brow.

“I mean that there never was uncle Eustace sitting in the Gryffindor common room helping my mother with her homework like she always reminisces.” James said in frustration, feeling suddenly lighter being able to say it out loud. “I mean that mom’s stories are bullshit.”

“Maybe he was in a different house.” Peter reasoned.

“Maybe, but that’s not the point. Mom always said that they were both Gryffindors. That they were a team, outsmarting Slytherin bullies together. But why would she lie about uncle Eustace’s house? Why would she lie about that bird? Why does she burn letters in our fireplace in the middle of the night!? What kind of a mom is she!!?”

Remus grabbed his hand, and the touch grounded him, before he could raise his voice even more and embarrass himself even worse. He did not need that right now.

“Prongs. It’s okay.” Sirius’ voice was uncharacteristically soothing. “We’ll figure this out, once we are back home. Okay? Now we just focus on surviving.”

James swallowed and nodded, feeling a swelling warmth of love for his marauders, who were always there for him.  

“I think that it would be best, if we just focused on sleeping right now. The sun is getting down, and we have water at least.”

They all agreed with Peter and started looking for the softest and driest patch of the forest nearby to settle down huddle close.

 

 

In the quiet night of the elven woods, an Irish elk lumbered peacefully towards the lake. It noticed the human interlopers with its dark eyes and paid them no mind. It paid no mind to the four boys sleeping together in a pile, not even when the one smelling like a wolf opened its yellow eyes and stared at the old elk bending its neck to drink from the lake, waking the other three sleeping around him with his movements.

It did not care about the boy and the girl that startled awake from a close embrace, the girl having wrapped herself entirely around the boy who smelled faintly like the dark, long dead witch, from the bottom of the lake. The girl loosened her embrace, as both of their eyes followed the moves of the giant megafauna so close to them, in terrified wonder.  

It did not care for the other boy and the girl sleeping close, but modestly separate, sitting up and peering at the elk’s magnificent antlers in amazement.   

It simply looked back at the gathering of young humans and then walked away, undisturbed and uncaring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Next chapter will be an interlude chapter with a bit of a background to Potter's family and the answer to the question what kind of a mom does James have. The chapter is ready, and will be up in a day or two. 
> 
> -Unlike the triple moon, which I picked just for the aesthetic, and which is a modern symbol, the solar wheel is both used in modern wicca and has roots in prehistoric symbolism.  
> http://www.odinsvolk.ca/sunwheel.htm  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_cross
> 
> -You know those lakes where the water is so stupidly clear that you aren't sure whether believe your eyes or not? That's what every lake in the faerie is like.  
> https://www.ecosia.org/images?q=Lake+Blausee#id=_
> 
> -Narcissa absolutely has the witch equivalent of this: https://www.fashion-era.com/early_swimwear.htm that she swims in back home. The purebloods are still mostly stuck in the 1700s and 1800s when it comes to things like fashion, manners and values. Narcissa, being a proper lady and sharing a room with other pureblood girls, doesn't even know that bras exist. https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/ladies-underdrawers-in-regency-times/
> 
> -Those books that Narcissa listed as her childhood education are all real books from the 1800s. I simply switched the word woman in the title to the word witch. You can google the titles and find most of those books free to read on the internet, if you want a reminder how lucky you are not being born middle-class girl in Victorian Britain.
> 
> -Megafauna are awesome, there is no question about that.  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_elk


	5. Interlude 1/7: Story of Euphemia Patil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tara knew she could never tell David that the misery of her city was too immense and blurred to be listed and assailed one by one. That it was fatal to fight for justice; that it was better to remain passive and absorb all the shocks as they came.  
> -The Tiger’s Daughter, Bharati Mukherjee

Euphemia loved her roses. She loved the garden and the spacious house on the English countryside that her family lived in and she loved her afternoon tea and her home-made scones. She loved her husband and, above all else, she loved her son.

Once she had also loved her parents and her brother, but nowadays she loved only the memory of them.

Her son runs across the grass, so handsome it almost hurts. He is on the brink of manhood now, her little baby.

“Mom! Mom!”

“yes dear?”

Her son stops in front of her, sun playing on his thick hair, plastered sweaty against skin, skin that compared to her's was white, and passed as tanned amongst the pale masses of children in Hogwarts.

“I’m going flying. Don’t wait for me for dinner!”

She did not have time to answer before her son had already rushed off, all the vibrant innocence of childhood still contained in that frame that was nearing manhood too fast.

 

She had never loved India.

She barely remembered India, but at times India would sneak up on her. She would be tending to her roses and suddenly a memory of a smell would throw her back, to the heat and the noises of grandaunt’s garden, the smell of spices floating from the open patio door mixing with the heavy scent of the garden flowers.

Or she might be mixing tea in the kitchen and suddenly remember sitting in her childhood drawing room, how the sun had created a square of light on the wall with a painting of English countryside on it. How she had stared at that painting, thinking that all of England looked like that. Sloping green hills, one horse-carriage labouring on the snaking dirt-road, a pair of lovers having a picnic underneath a tree in the corner. She had imagined that every tree had a pair of lovers cuddling underneath it and every road was a narrow dirt-road with a horse carriage travelling on it, eternally.  

There were always raised voices: sharp, angry arguments flying back and forth in the background of her memories of the drawing room. How mother had called England motherland, and how her aunt (or maybe someone else) had started yelling, followed by the rest of the family, their voices ebbing and flowing like waves, crashing on the rock that was mother. Back then she had never seen the sea and couldn’t have made the comparison, but that is how she now remembers it.

Now India had turned into a picture in her head and England into the solid reality. Her family eternally collected in that English-style house, arguing whether India should be allowed independence or not. Arguing about the war. Arguing about whether mother was a traitor to the family or not.

Sometimes she even recollected glimpses of her grandaunt’s small house, where every wall was covered with shelves and shelves of manuscripts, and there were magical artefacts crammed into every nook. In that house grandaunt had told them the history of the Patil family, stretching back so far that Euphemia didn’t want to think of it. It scared her, the looming history that was too vast for her to understand. She desired for comforting things and there were no comforting things in grandaunt’s house, expect the flowers in the garden.

Eustace had not shied away from grandaunt’s stories. He had yearned for them. He didn’t mind when grandaunt called them Anasuya and Abhimanyu, instead of by their names. Some people said that it was her seer's abilities, which made her name people for what they would be, instead of what they were. Mother and father said that she did it just to get on their nerves.

Euphemia liked her own name better and thought that Eustace should also like his real name better. They were names like you could find in _Little Witches_ , or _Adventures of a Young Wizard in the Eastern Seas_. Good English names that were never misspelled in letters from the British Indian Ministry of Magic.

 

One late spring they had left, leaving behind the everlasting arguments and the family divided. In the Ministry's lobby, a white-skinned wizard looked over their passports, his golden-trimmed glasses looking at them with suspicion that had startled Euphemia at the time.

The long-distance floo-network had carried them across the continent, India burning away from her in a burst of green flames.

England had not been what her mother had expected, and it hadn’t been what Euphemia had expected either. Her mother had worshipped the English way of life back home. She had been proud to tell the story of the Patil family who had allied with British wizarding families when the British Raj was being established. Cooperation and mutual understanding, she had always said.

Mother had believed that this made her and the British wizarding families allies. That the Patil’s were now one of them. After all, the Patil’s were a magical family with bloodline tracking all the way back to the Gupta empire. But there are things thicker even than blood, things like money, and power, and the hegemony, and no matter how well they fit in, they were still a time-bomb waiting to happen. Enemies, nobody says, while everybody looked at them too long in the eyes, trying to see if they are carrying hostile thoughts.

Mother learns to keep her wand always visible, the gift of the European civilization to the rest of the world, as not carrying it will mark you as unenlightened, other. In here, a wand marks the difference between a man and a creature. Britain might take potions ingredients, and magical artefacts, and magical creatures, and anything that you can sell on the markets of Diagon Alley, but in return they give wands, and all the writings of John Dee, which has to be a fair trade.

London is dirty and noisy and full of muggles, and nothing is quite as beautiful as the paintings promised. Those same wizards who had praised their family in India, barely have time to spare them a glance, expect to congratulate them of their choice.

Somewhere along her father’s ever deepening frown and her mother’s slow descent into anger, Euphemia learns the importance of either/or. English or Indian. Good or Bad. Happy or Miserable. The one who is loved or the one who is hated. You either have it all or nothing.

Her brother seems to struggle more. Or maybe not. Maybe Eustace understands the distinction just as well as Euphemia but has chosen a different side. He still whispers Hindi to himself when he is alone, and it sounds like a curse in Euphemia's ears, which are getting used to hearing only English.

 

The house was always so empty when James left for Hogwarts. She tended to send James off with countless little gifts and tokens in his pockets and bags, but the truth was that she wished that she could have taken some part of James and keep it here with her, forever.

But she still had summers, with James napping underneath the apple tree in the garden, his voice filling the otherwise silent house.

His broom was thrown carelessly onto the grass. He has been flying again. Her son loved flying. Maybe it was the freedom he yearned, or maybe he liked to be higher than everyone else, Euphemia didn't know and didn't particularly care.

James' reasons to do things didn’t matter to Euphemia. To her James was a vessel to carry all of her overflowing love. Not a project for her to shape, or a trophy to showcase. He didn’t need to be perfect, or even good. All he needed to be was happy and carefree.

 

 

Like all the little witches and young wizards of the novels, Euphemia too finds herself walking the hallowed halls of Hogwarts when she is eleven. She is sorted into Gryffindor, and year later her brother into Slytherin. It is fine, it is not yet time when the lines between the houses have inflamed as badly as they will in just a few decades. Of course, nobody particularly likes Slytherins, but they aren’t associated with Tom Riddle yet. The to-be-dark-lord is still being nursed by the staff of the Wool’s Orphanage.

But even without the help of the Dark Lord, Eustace is making himself into a suspicious character. He is frustrated, he argues with the teachers and is always preening for a fight. It is not only once that he is caught breaking into the forbidden section of the library.

Euphemia starts to resent him. There is already a shadow hanging over the Patil siblings, a shadow you are not allowed to talk about, but which is still always there. And every time Euphemia manages to banish the shadow, Eustace brings it back.

She resents Eustace this. She resents him for not understanding that he was fighting only for the sake of fighting, because his blasted ambitions could not allow for him to look behind himself, at their parents who had made their utmost so that their children would be accepted into the British society.

 

Fleamont Potter finds her on her fifth year, or maybe Euphemia finds Fleamont. It hardly matters, as they do manage to find each other. Fleamont is as English as they come, from a family that has lived in the same village for centuries, determinedly marrying their neighbours whether they be muggles or wizards, therefore showcasing their liberal state of attitudes towards marriage and blood-purity issues.  

They become partners during a herbology lesson, Fleamont quietly confessing how he has been intrigued by her ever since their first year. Euphemia is sold then and there, drinking in the pale blue eyes and the shy smile.

 

Fleamont is excited to take Euphemia back home, to meet his parents, to showcase his home. Euphemia would call it a manor, except Fleamont tells her that it is not.

The Potter family is a very old one, even if it has never been at the very forefront of wizarding history. Mr. and Mrs. Potter are happy to tell you that they have not appeared in the much-contested list of Sacred Twenty-Eight, and that they most assuredly do not want to, but their family does have very illustrious history, just so you know dear.

The story of the first Potter is told repeatedly every time there are quests around; the twelfth-century wizard Linfred of Stinchcombe, the benevolent man who so eagerly helped his fellow muggle villagers, that the entire village was practically kept alive, healthy, and in constant state of bliss because of him. Gold, riches and marriages to legendary characters in wizarding history follow this tale, and usually last all the way to the desserts.

The Potters are very quick to assert that they are nothing like the Blacks, or the Malfoys, those rich degenerates who accumulate money and influence through wiles and crimes. The Potters in contrast have made every sickle of their hard-earned millions through grit, determination and ingenuity that runs in the family.

Fleamont’s father was especially fond of regaling the story of how he had fought the entire wizengamot for British wizards’ right to enlist for the great war. The battlefields would have offered a great place for a good old-fashioned adventure and an opportunity to help some poor muggles. The minister had argued that “wizards need not sacrifice themselves needlessly” like the coward that he was.

Fleamont in turn was fond of regaling his parents of the tales of discrimination that he bravely overcame in school, his name being silly and easily made fun of, to which he always answered with a swift wand hand, stiff upper lip, and stiff fortitude of character.

“that’s why he was so attracted to you. You are both oddballs!” Fleamont’s mother had whispered conspiringly in Euphemia’s ear during a Christmas dinner.

Euphemia loved them. The Potter family was innocent and happy in a way that her own family would never be. They lived in their big house (not a mansion) in a picturesque bliss and scoffed at the silly prejudices of the Blacks and Malfoys. They spoke in behalf of the duty wizards with their superior powers owed to their less fortunate brothers and sisters in the muggle world, and championed for a gentler approach when educating the more unfortunate members of the Empire.

Euphemia Patil became Euphemia Potter wearing a brilliant white dress, just after they had both graduated from Hogwarts. The ceremony would have been perfect if it hadn’t been for Eustace.

Eustace who stood in the back, scowling the whole time.

“Aren’t you going to take steps around the fire?” Eustace told her, scowling, as she made her way to her brother amongst the hustle and bustle of the party.

“The what?”

Eustace took a sip of the alcohol he was not supposed to be drinking. “Nevermind.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Blessings to your marriage. You made mistake, you know that.”

Angry heat flushing in her chest, Euphemia regarded her sullen brother, sudden hate kindling in her that she had not expected.

“You know nothing of Fleamont.”

“They just want exotic wives, you have to realise that. That’s the story of the Potter family. They take wives from unfortunate backgrounds and congratulate each other in circles. Then they turn those wives into perfect Potters and showcase them around the society like the hunters that they are.”

“Shut up! Shut up! Why do you have to be so hateful!?”

“It’s true-“ her younger brother said, flush of alcohol he could not handle on his face, “-They are vultures, the lot of them.”

“Get out, Eustace!”

“My name is Hari. I’ve decided.”

 

The next year, Eustace graduated and disappeared the same day. He insisted that his friends call him Hari Patil for the entirety of his seventh year, and as he got his diploma, he bought a ticket for international floo-travel and disappeared to the crowds of Calcutta.

 

James at the age of seven found out that he had an uncle. It had been an unfortunate aunt of Fleamont's who brought up Eustace while James, the little rascal, had been listening in hiding. When he realised that the conversation had touched upon an uncle, he had bounced to his mother and demanded to know the whole story.

The Potter family had given Euphemia a look, and she had taken James outside to deal with it.

“Yes, you do have an uncle but-“

“Why is he never here! Why has he never given me gifts? Everyone else gives me gifts!”

“He is not in England-“

“Why?”

“He-“ and Euphemia had looked at his son, his perfect sweet boy, and decided that the violent India would never have him. He would live forever in the happy world of Potters, where everything was more beautiful, more honourable. “-He is in India looking for the moonstone. He is a brave adventurer.”

“What’s the moonstone?”

“It is a brilliant jewel. An ancient yellow diamond hidden somewhere in the deep jungles of India, waiting for a hero brave enough to claim it. It will grant eternal happiness and youth for brave boys like yourself! That’s why your uncle Eustace is searching for it.”

“When will he come back?”

“I don’t know baby. When he finds the moonstone, he will come back and give it to you as a gift.”

“For me?!”

“Yes baby. For you. Because we want for you to be forever young and happy.”

“Can I go and help him? I’m brave and strong!”

“I know you are baby. But uncle Eustace so much wants to find it himself. He has been working so hard, it wouldn’t be fair if you snatched it after he has worked so hard.”

“I guess.”

Euphemia buried her nose in her son’s hair and prayed that Eustace would never come back to England.  

 

Euphemia was glad to be sheltered in her husband’s home after their marriage. Every day it seemed that the newspapers told the story of a new atrocity done against the English wizards stationed in India, fallen victim to the new violent rebel movements. Hari Patil was a name that was mentioned several times as one of the most wanted agitators.

“You know, I’m not surprised.” Said one of the guests at the Potter’s midsummer garden-party. “Because he was a Slytherin!” the woman hurriedly exclaimed as she saw Euphemia. “You know how those Slytherins are, always need an ambition to fulfill, not giving a toss whether it is good for the populace or not. Now I’m not saying that there haven’t been some excellent Slytherins, just that if they don’t aim their predilections in the right direction-“

Euphemia wasn’t listening anymore. She had already drifted towards the roses, slightly fingering the soft petals and desperately wishing for a child.

 

Uncle Eustace became a stable for bedtime stories, like Babbitty Rabbitty and the Wizard with the Hopping pot. At first it was difficult to come up with stories about her brother, but the more differences the character of uncle Eustace gained from her brother, the easier it became.

Uncle Eustace had been a Gryffindor, perfect brother, Euphemia’s stalwart protector. Another recurring character ended up being Salak the Snivelling Slytherin who was always skulking after them, trying his hardest to curse and trick them. In her stories, Eustace always bested Salak, showing that his trickery was nothing against honest chivalry. Salak was the one who broke into the forbidden section of the library, Salak was the one who started useless fights in the corridors, and Salak was the one who escaped the country when they graduated. Because he had decided that English wizards were too tough for him to trick and thief. The more Euphemia told her tales, the more at peace she felt with the past.

 

The years rolled past Euphemia and Fleamont, but no child was coming. Their barrenness was a dark cloud that hung over their life every hour, every minute. The sorting hat had once upon a time told her that she possessed extraordinary amounts of perseverance, of bravery in front of unimaginable challenges. She did not often feel that way, staring at the blood staining her shift, another month passing without a child.

 

The second war comes to England when Euphemia is standing on Diagon Alley, picking up potion ingredients for Fleamont from the pharmacy. At first there is a noise, louder than anything she has heard before, then she is flung across the room, landing in a heap of broken bottles, thousands cutting pieces of glass digging into her skin, and then there is the pain. Pain in her skin, pain in her ringing ears, pain in her broken leg.

Then filter in the rest of the noises, the screaming, the distant roaring, the silence between.

The front of the shop has caved in completely, the kindly old owner of the store buried under the fallen roof. Euphemia can see his upper body producing from underneath the caved in roof tiles, his still alive face twisted in a scream that doesn’t make a sound. There is blood pouring out of his mouth and one arm is twisted behind his back in an unnatural position. The man stares at Euphemia in desperation and agony and then in the emptiness of death.

There is a lot of arguing going on in the ministry for the next month, with nothing much to show for it. There are arguments about how to close the pocket spaces of the wizarding world from any unfamiliar object whatsoever (impossible) to deploying wizards in the muggle army to end the war (useless) to just exterminating muggles all together. (are you mad!?) (But also, not possible manpower-wise, no matter what Grindelwald claims.)

Fleamont’s father stops telling the story of how he fought against the entire Wizengamot for the wizards’ right to fight in the great war. The political environment is not suitable for the story anymore.

 

In their countryside house, Euphemia tries even harder for a child. A child to distract Fleamont from ugliness of the world, a child to make them look forwards to the future, a child to bring back the lost innocence to the house of Potter.

 

When James is eight, he brings in a hurt bird from the garden. The bird is grasped tightly in his fist, jostled back and forth in the excitement of James bringing it inside.

Euphemia can already see how her son’s grubby, childish fist squeezes the life out of the fragile animal, in the time that it takes for him to run from the door to her.

“Look mom! It’s hurt! I found it in the garden, and its wing was all smashed up and twisted.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you honey.” Euphemia takes the bird from James before the young boy can notice the limpness of its body, the way it had quieted down.

“We must take the little bird to a quiet place where it can sleep and heal.” She smiles, and James smiles too, ecstatic in his knowledge that mother always knows what to do.

She places the dead bird in a shoebox, amidst soft scarves and some seeds that James has insisted that the bird will be happy to have for breakfast when it wakes up.

Innocently sitting on the living room sofa, with a glass of pumpkin juice, James asks: “How long will take for the bird to heal?”

“Not long at all, I would think. Not after you brought it in here to rest in a comfy shoebox.”

A surge of love overtakes Euphemia then and there, almost overwhelming her. Her sweet, good-natured, gentle son who only wished for every bird to be happy and healthy.

“You are a good young boy, James. You are so very _good_.”

“Okay, mom.” James looks at his mother bit confusedly. 

Fleamont disagrees with Euphemia’s plan, when she brings another bird into the house in the middle of the night, this one very much hale and healthy.

“Shouldn’t we be honest with the boy. He is not a baby anymore, he will have to learn about death at one point or another.”

Euphemia thinks of the Potion apothecary owner’s gurgle as he had slowly crushed to death underneath his own shop’s roof. Euphemia thinks of her brother, as she had last seen him, after the end of the second war, eyes weighted with all the carnage that he had seen.

“Don’t be stupid Flee! He is eight. I won’t do that to him!”

 

Euphemia still doesn’t have a child when the war ends. Grindelwald has been locked back up, the muggles have put away their bombs (for the moment) and Diagon Alley is safe to walk without glancing at the sky every minute.

India eventually pushes itself back to the front pages of the Prophet. The independence movement has won, the disgruntled wizards that had once been the British-Indian Ministry of Magic return to London and find that they have nothing to do anymore, and are very frustrated about it. The prices of potion ingredients surge up in a way that leaves the shoppers in Diagon Alley outraged. Even Fleamont is frustrated, his potions selling business suffering now that the Empire doesn't supply him with cheap ingredients anymore. The quadrupling of the Potter family wealth stops there. They never quite make it to become billionaires, but being humble and simple folk, the Potter's are fine with their status as millionaires.  

and Euphemia is once again accosted with awkward questions during the Potter family garden parties.

 

The same year that India is announced independent, Eustace (- _your loving brother Hari_ ) sends Euphemia a letter.

She eventually agrees to meet him in the Leaky Cauldron, where Eustace walks hidden underneath hoods and heaps of obscuring clothes. Euphemia has also hidden herself as much as possible, the fear of Fleamont’s friends seeing her in such suspicious company unbearable.

“You should come back to India.” Eustace- (Hari, I keep reminding you!”) keeps saying. Euphemia keeps telling him how ridiculous it all is. “I have a husband!”

“Then take him with you! You are a Patil! We once advised the Gupta kings! We need to establish the old families again, to seize control and bring back the old Magical India before it splinters into chaos.”

“You aren’t going to stop fighting.” Euphemia says with a sudden revelation. Eustace (Hari!!) has fought his entire life, from the hallways of Hogwarts to the streets of Calcutta. He doesn’t know how to stop.

“And you will never start.” He says with a similar tone of revelation.

“I’m happy. Is that not enough? Cannot that be enough? Why cannot I just be happy like the other witches? I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to go back to India. I want to stay in my garden and raise children. Am I not allowed that?”

Eustace (Hari!!!!!) gets up and says something in Hindi that Euphemia doesn’t understand. She does not speak fluent Hindi anymore, hasn’t spoken in years.

 

 

When James is eleven, he goes to Hogwarts and comes back full of questions that Euphemia wishes he didn’t have.

“What is it like in India? Is it true that they are all taught dark magic at home?” (I don’t remember, and I don’t know. Don't ask me about India, it makes mommy feel sad.)

“I met a boy from the Black family, but he’s allright! Is it okay if I’m still friends with him?” (He is in Gryffindor? What a surprise. I guess it is fine. Ask your father.)

“The Slytherins seem pretty normal. I thought they would be meaner?.” (Just wait. They are not to be trusted. They’ll abandon you for their goals like that.)

 

The house without James was empty and bleak. When she didn’t have her son underfoot, she didn’t know what to do with herself, so she ended up writing letters to James and buying candies to send to James and generally just thinking of James.

 

Eustace keeps sending letters to her sporadically, and Euphemia reads them with a masochistic streak of bitterness. She doesn’t want her brother anywhere near her life, or more importantly, anywhere near her son. The idea of her son in the violent world of her brother fills her with such fear and loathing that it cannot be described. She monitors the birds near their home with iron-clad fist and makes sure that no letter from Eustace will ever end up in the hands of James. James already has an uncle, an uncle who is searching for the Moonstone, and the real Eustace will not ruin it.

She burns the letters once she has read them, always promising herself that the next time she will not even open said envelopes.

 

Euphemia and Fleamont have stopped hoping for a child, when the miracle finally happens. The year is 1960, Diagon Alley has no longer a single mark of the blitz, and the ministry is talking nothing but positive drivel. India has finally been allowed a seat in the International Confederation of Wizards, and Lord Voldemort is still working a customer service job at Borkin and Burges.

James is their jewel, their fulfillment, their everything.

 

It is the summer before James’ fifth year at Hogwarts, when he wanders downstairs in the middle of the night. He has been restless the whole summer, reading the papers, writing letters to his friends (getting fewer in return than he would like), and scanning the newspapers with increasing anxiety.

He comes downstairs when he should be sleeping, and sees Euphemia kneeling in front of the fireplace, burning letters.

She wants to tell him to go back up, to let her be, but she doesn’t have the words. Her son, her beautiful, precious son bounces the remaining stairs, (What are you doing mom?) and boldly reaches for what her mother is holding in her hands. Never in his life has he encountered a real boundary from his mother, so the action does not even register in his mind.

Euphemia snatches the letter back, staring at her son with something unfamiliar. James is not supposed to be here, not witnessing this ritual. James belongs in another world, a world that Hari Patil will never touch.

She notices too late that her son’s eyes have shifted to stare at the paper inside the fireplace, where the words of Hari Patil are still visible for the few seconds before they burst into flames and turn into ashes.

“What- I don’t- Was that my name in the letter?“ James is blinking stupidly in front of her, and Euphemia surprised by the flush of annoyance she feels towards her son. For a moment, all she could see was another blind and foolish Englishman, easily led and made believe anything.

“Go back to your room!” She barks, the knowledge that her brother is still fighting for some unnecessary cause like a heavy stone in her stomach. Her brother still hasn’t stopped fighting, currently in the throes of some war against Pakistani, and she doesn’t want James to know. She doesn’t want to explain that Eustace is bleeding for some crumbling Patil inheritance situated in Kashmir, that doesn't matter.

“But it has my name in it-!” James says and reaches for the already burning piece of parchment inside the fireplace.

She doesn’t even realise that her hand has moved, until she is staring at her son. Her son who has a red imprint on his cheek.

She has slapped her son.

She has raised a hand against her son. Her James.

She wants to throw up. She wants to stuff herself inside the burning fireplace. She wants to wail and scream in despair and grief.

“Go back to your room.” She says, and her son goes, silent, shaken, unnerved. They don’t talk about it for the rest of the summer. They don’t talk much of anything for the rest of the summer. 

 

Euphemia stays up, staring at the ceiling during the night. She wonders whether if she had been born an English-witch, she would have been gentler. If she would have been a better mother. She wished that she would have been born English, a fragile, Lily-white witch who worried for nothing but the state of her garden. Innocent, happy, pure.

 

James goes back to Hogwarts, and not a month later there is a visit from an auror, telling her that her son has disappeared during a detention.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Next chapter we go back to the kids and find out how they are dealing with their hunger, emotions, and injuries, not necessarily in that order. 
> 
> -I heavily recommend that you read J.K. Rowlings text on the history of the Potter family on Pottermore:  
> https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-potter-family  
> As Euphemia's origins are not talked about at all, I had free hands to be creative. Also, try to imagine the Pottermore text as the exact version that Potter family tells their quests over dinner, because that's exactly the kind of humblebrag it sounds like :D
> 
> -Anasuya: a figure from hindu mythology known for her virtue, and how her motherly love was so strong that she could turn even adult gods back into babies for her to take care of.  
> http://www.apamnapat.com/entities/Anasuya.html
> 
> -Abhimanyu: a war hero from mythology who was defeated only when his opponents broke the rules of war, and killed him by attacking him from all sides during a duel.  
> http://www.apamnapat.com/entities/Abhimanyu.html
> 
> -John Dee: Queen Elizabeth's court wizard  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee
> 
> -The Moonstone is a reference to Wilkie Collins' 1868 published sensation novel: The Moonstone. The novel revolves around a great diamond looted by British soldiers from an Indian temple, rumoured to bring great misfortune to anyone who owns the stone, until it is returned back to India. The novel was controversial for its time, depicting the three Indian characters chasing the Moonstone in almost sympathetic light, instead of as the savage monsters that 19th century literature usually depicted its Indian characters. 
> 
> -There was a lot of action going on in India between the two world wars, with bombing of the central Assembly and raiding of the police armories. The magical side of India was in the same spirits, because there is no way that muggle politics don't bleed into magical politics. That's how politics work, everything affects everything. 
> 
> -Salak is a bastardised version of the Hindi word चालाक/chaalaak, meaning cunning/devious/crafty
> 
> -a quick look on the British-Indian relations during the first half of the 20th century:  
> https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/india-1900-to-1947/
> 
> -While in the muggle side of history, the British economical struggles had more to do with the war, and Britain still had its other colonies to fall back to soften the blow, including the informal neo-empire of the commonwealth union, the wizarding side, where the markets were much smaller and more specialized, suffered much more. UK could keep importing tea and other raw materials from its other colonies, but if Fleamont Potter needs that one specific magical plant for his potions, then he is shit out of luck. Wizarding population being much smaller, it also feel the effects of political changes much more intimately than their muggle counterparts.  
> http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/5/decolonization-and-the-collapse-of-the-british-empire


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